A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 3 | Page 2

Hernando Cortes against Mexico, Introduction.
SECT. I. Improvements made in the colony of Hispaniola, by Nicholas de Obando, and the great value of gold procured in that island during his government.
II. Settlement of Porto Rico under Juan Ponce de Leon.
III. Don James Columbus is appointed to the government of the Spanish dominions in the West Indies.
IV. Settlement of a Pearl Fishery at the island of Cubagua.
V. Alonzo de Hojeda and Diego de Nicuessa are commissioned to make discoveries and settlements in the New World, with an account of the adventures and misfortunes of Hojeda.
VI. The history of Vasco Nugnez de Balboa, and the establishment, by his means, of the colony of Darien.
VII. The adventures, misfortunes, and death of Don Diego de Nicuessa, the founder of the colony of Nombre de Dios.
VIII. The conquest and settlement of the island of Cuba by Diego Velasquez.
IX. The strange expedition of Juan Ponce de Leon in search of the Fountain of Youth, in which he discovered Florida and the Bahama Channel.
X. The martyrdom of two Dominican Friars on the coast of Venezuela, through the avarice of the Spaniards.
XI. Discoveries on the continent of America, by command of Velasquez, under the conduct of Francis Hernandez de Cordova.
XII. Farther discoveries on the continent by Juan Grijalva, under the orders of Velasquez, by which a way is opened to Mexico or New Spain.
CHAP. V. History of the discovery and conquest of Mexico, written in the year 1568, by Captain Bernal Diaz del Castillo, one of the conquerors, Introduction, Preface by the Author.
SECT. I. Expedition of Hernandez de Cordova in 1517.
II. Expedition of Juan de Grijalva in 1518.
III. Commencement of the expedition of Hernando Cortes for the conquest of Mexico, in 1518.
IV. Arrival of the armament at St Juan de Ulua, and account of occurrences at that place.
V. The Spanish army advances into the country; an account of their proceedings before commencing their march to Mexico.
[1] By error of the press, a considerable part of this Section is marked in the running title as Section V. and the next is numbered Section VI. so that, numerically only, Section V; is entirely omitted.
[Illustration: West Indies]

A GENERAL HISTORY AND COLLECTION OF VOYAGES AND TRAVELS.

PART II.
BOOK II.
HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, AND OF SOME OF THE EARLY CONQUESTS IN THE NEW WORLD.
* * * * *

CHAP. I.
HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS; WRITTEN BY HIS SON DON FERDINAND COLUMBUS[1].
INTRODUCTION.
[Illustration: West Indies]
The whole of this chapter contains an original record, being a distinct narrative of the discovery of America by COLUMBUS, written by his own son, who accompanied him in his latter voyages. It has been adopted into the present work from the Collection of Voyages and Travels published at London in 1704, by Awnsham and John Churchill, in four volumes folio; in which it is said to have been translated from the original Italian of Don Ferdinand Columbus, expressly for the use of that work. The language of that translation is often obscure and ungrammatical, as if the work of a foreigner; but, having no access to the original, has necessarily been adopted for the present occasion, after being carefully revised and corrected. No farther alteration has been taken with that version, except a new division into sections, instead of the prolix and needlessly minute subdivision of the original translation into a multitude of chapters; which change was necessary to accommodate this interesting original document to our plan of arrangement; and except in a few rare instances, where uninteresting controversial argumentations have been somewhat abridged, and even these chiefly because the original translator left the sense obscure or unintelligible, from ignorance of the language or of the subject.
It is hardly necessary to remark, that the new grand division of the world which was discovered by this great navigator, ought from him to have been named COLUMBIA. Before setting out upon this grand discovery, which was planned entirely by his own transcendent genius, he was misled to believe that the new lands he proposed to go in search of formed an extension of the India, which was known to the ancients; and still impressed with that idea, occasioned by the eastern longitudes of Ptolemy being greatly too far extended, he gave the name of West Indies to his discovery, because he sailed to them westwards; and persisted in that denomination, even after he had certainly ascertained that they were interposed between the Atlantic ocean and Japan, the Zipangu, or Zipangri of Marco Polo, of which and Cathay or China, he first proposed to go in search.
Between the third and fourth voyages of COLUMBUS, Ojeda, an officer who had accompanied him in his second voyage, was surreptitiously sent from Spain, for the obvious purpose of endeavouring to curtail the vast privileges which had been conceded to Columbus, as admiral and