form those productions of the eminent captains and statesmen of the
time, which are not very accessible to Spaniards themselves.

M. Amedee Pichot, in the Preface to the French translation of the
"Conquest of Mexico," infers from the plan of the composition, that I
must have carefully studied the writings of his countryman, M. de
Barante. The acute critic does me but justice in supposing me familiar
with the principles of that writer's historical theory, so ably developed in
the Preface to his "Ducs de Bourgogne." And I have had occasion to
admire the skilful manner in which he illustrates this theory himself, by
constructing out of the rude materials of a distant time a monument of
genius that transports us at once into the midst of the Feudal Ages,-and
this without the incongruity which usually attaches to a modernantique.
In like manner, I have attempted to seize the characteristic expression of
a distant age, and to exhibit it in the freshness of life. But in an essential
particular, I have deviated from the plan of the French historian. I have
suffered the scaffolding to remain after the building has been completed.
In other words, I have shown to the reader the steps of the process by
which I have come to my conclusions. Instead of requiring him to take
my version of the story on trust, I have endeavored to give him a reason
for my faith. By copious citations from the original authorities, and by
such critical notices of them as would explain to him the influences to
which they were subjected, I have endeavored to put him in a position
for judging for himself, and thus for revising, and, if need be, reversing,
the judgments of the historian. He will, at any rate, by this means, be
enabled to estimate the difficulty of arriving at truth amidst the conflict
of testimony; and he will learn to place little reliance on those writers
who pronounce on the mysterious past with what Fontenelle calls "a
frightful degree of certainty,"--a spirit the most opposite to that of the
true philosophy of history.