Wilson acknowledges that he knows nothing of the works in
question. "For our purpose," he writes, "the standard histories of the
conquest might as well be blank paper." We believe him; but had
his purpose been, not "to denounce in general terms the venerable
_precedents_ so constantly quoted by our annalists, but to show their
defects and their errors in detail," he would hardly have used them, as
he has done, as mere wadding for the great gun which he was loading,
and which has exploded with such terrible effect. His objection to
the "standard histories" is, that their authors were Spaniards,
ecclesiastics, royal historiographers,--that they wrote under the eye of
the Inquisition and the censorship. Like objections would apply to the
whole field of Spanish history. The reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella,
Charles the Fifth, and Philip the Second must, therefore, be as fabulous
as the conquests of Mexico and Peru. Accordingly, Mr. Wilson, when he
wishes to study the history of Spain, declines to have recourse to
Spanish writers. He goes to writers of other countries, and has a very
natural preference for such as speak the English tongue.
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