famous Archivo General de Mexico, in thirty-two volumes; the autograph originals of Cárlos María Bustamante’s historical writings, in about fifty volumes, containing much not found in his printed works; the original records of the earliest Mexican councils of the church, with many ecclesiastical and missionary chronicles not extant in print; and finally a large amount of copied material on special topics drawn from different archives expressly for my work.
Documents printed by the Mexican government, including the regular memorias and other reports of different departments and officials, constitute a most valuable source of information.
Partisan writings and political pamphlets are a noticeable feature of Mexican historical literature, indispensable to the historian who would study both sides of every question.
Prominent Mexicans have formed collections of such works, a dozen of which I have united in one, making two hundred and eighteen volumes of Papeles Varios, some five thousand pamphlets, besides nearly as many more collected by my own efforts.
The newspapers of a country cannot be disregarded, and my collection is not deficient in this class of data, being particularly rich in official periodicals.
The conquest of Mexico, which begins this history, has the peculiar attractions of forming the grandest episode in early American annals from a military point of view, and in opening to the world the richest, most populous, and most civilized country on the northern continent, and of gradually incorporating it in the sisterhood of nations as the foremost representative of Latin-American states. On the other hand, an episode which presents but a continuation of the bloody path which marked the advance of the conquerors in America,