While I was writing this story, I saw by chance, what had been written by Gómara, Yllescas and Jovio, about the conquest of Mexico and New Spain, and when I had read their accounts and saw and appreciated their polished style, and thought how rudely and lamely my story was told, I stopped writing it, seeing that such good histories already existed, Being in this perplexed state of mind, I began to look into the arguments and discourses which are told in these books, and I saw that from beginning to end they did not tell correctly what took place in New Spain. When they begin to write about the great cities, and the great number of the inhabitants, they are as ready to write eighty thousand as eight thousand. Then about the great slaughter which they say we committed:–As we were only four hundred and fifty soldiers who marched to that war, we had enough to do to defend ourselves from being killed or defeated and carried off; and even had the Indians been craven cowards, we could not have committed all the slaughter attributed to us, more particularly as the Indians were very bold warriors who had cotton armour which shielded their bodies, and were armed with bows, arrows, shields, long lances, and two-handled stoneedged swords, which cut better than our swords did, Nevertheless, the historians say that we made as great a slaughter and committed as great cruelties as did Alaric, that bravest of kings, and the haughty warrior Attila, on the battlefields of Catalonia.