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Show XXIV ACCOUNT OF THE WRil'ERS OF THE 'being entirely cleared from ~very fufpic_ion againft his_ loyal ~y and h~nou_r, hnt without recovering hts manufcnpts, he pubhlhed 1~ Madud, 111 17 46, in one volume in quarto, a ~et~.;h o~ the great hdl:ory he was meditating. It was found to cont.un much 1mport:m~ knowle~gc, ~le. vcr before p~1blilhed; but there were alfo fome errors 1111t: The htll:oncal fyCl:em which he had formed to himfelf, was too rnagmficent for execution, and therefore fcmtall:ical. Bdidcs thefe and other Spanifh and Indian writers, there are feme. nnonyrnous writers whofe works are worthy of being recorded on account of. the import:mce of their fubjeCl:; fuch as, I. Certain Annals of the Toltccan nation, p~tinted on paper, and written in the Mexican language, in which there is an account given of the pilgrimage and ·wars of the Toltecas, of their king, of the founding of Tollan, their metropolis, and other occurrences until the year I 547 of the vulgar <£ra. 2. ertain Hifl:orical Commentaries in the Mexican Language on the Events of the Aztecan, or Mexican Nation, from the year I o66 to I 3 I 6 ; and others alia in the Mexican language from the year q67 to I 509. 3. A Mexican Hifl:ory in the Mexican language, carried back as far as the year 1406. In this hifl:ory, the arrival of the Mexicans at the city of Tollan, is fixed at I 196, agreeable to what we report in our hill:ory. All thefe manufcripts were in the valuable mufeum of Botmini. We {hall not here mention thofe authors who wrote on the antiquity of Michu:1t:an, of Yucatan, of Guatemala, and of New Mexico; becaufe, although many at prefent believe all thefe provinces were comprehended in Mexico, they did not belong to the Mexican empire, the hifl:ory of which we write. We have mentioned the writers on the ancient hill:ory of the kingdom of Acolhuacan, and the republic of Tlafcala, becaufe their events are for the moll: part Connec1ed with thofe of the Mexicans. If in _e~umerating the writers on Mexico, we meant to difpby our erudttlOn, we could add a long catalogue of French, EngliQ1 , Italian, Dutch, Flemi01, and German writers, who have written either defignedly, o_r accidentally, on the ancient hifiory of that kingdom; but after havmg read many of them, to obtain affifiancc to this work I found none who were of fervice except the two Italians, Gemelli a~d Botu- AN C IE NT HIS T 0 R Y 0 F M EX l C 0. Boturini, who having been in Mexico, and procured from the Mex.-;cJns many of theu· paintings, and particular intelligence concerning their antiquity, have contributed in fome mcafure to illufirat~ their hi fl:or~. All the others have either repeated what was already wntten by SpJ1 11!h authors mentioned by us, or have altered faCts, at their owrr difcretion, to inveigh the more ll:rongly againll: the Spaniards, as has lately been done by M. de Paw, in his Philofophical Enquiries concerning the Americans, and Marmontel in his Romance of Tbe Incas. Amongil: the fo;:eign hill:orians of Mexico, none is more celebrated by them th an the Engli(h writer, Thomas Gage, _whom I obfe:ve many have quoted as an oracle, and yet there is no wnter on Amenca more adJicted to £1lfehood. Some, under the influence of the paff10ns of h(Jtred, love, or vanity, have been induced to mix fables with their writings; but Gage appears to have delighted in the invention of falfehoods. What motive or in tcrefi could occafion this author to fay, that the Capuchins had a beautiful convent in 'l'a ub:lja, that in Xalapa there was a bifhop's palace ereCted in his time, with, an income of ten thou0nd ducats ; that from Xalapa, he went to Rinconada, and from thence 111 one day to · Tepeaca; that there is in this city a great abundance of anona.r and of chicozapotes' that this fruit has a kernel larger than a pear; that tht: wildernefs ~f the Carmelites ll:ands to the north-wefi of the capital ·; that the Spaniards burnt the city Tingucz, in ~ivira; that having rebuilt it, they inhabited it at the time he was the re; t~at the Jefuits had a college in it; and a thoufand other ridicul?us lies~ wh1ch appear in every page, and excite in readers who are acquamtcd w1th thefc countries both laughter and contempt ? Amongll: modern writers on American affairs, the mofl: famo us and efi:eemed are the Abbe Raynal and D r. Robcrtfon. The ~bbe, bcfides feveral groii delu:fion s, into which he has fallen refp~Cl: 11~g the prefent ftatc of New Spain, doubts of every thing which 1S fud concen:mg the foundinrr of Mexico, and the ancient hifiory of the Mexi-cans. " Nothin~," iays he," are we permitted to affirm, cx.ccpt that the , " Mexican empire was governed. by Montezuma, .at _the tunc that th~ " Spaniards landed on the Mexican coafl:." Thts 1 • the n:anner of fpeaking of a philofopher of the eighteenth century. Nothlllg lTil)re VoL. I. d cau XXV |