I Accordingly
Wrote Down Every Transaction As It Occurred; But Soon Discovered That
These Could Not Be Understood Unless The Previous Events Were Explained
From Which They Originated.
I found it necessary, therefore, to go back to
the epoch of the discovery of the country, to give a detail of the
occurrences in their just order and connection.
My work might perhaps have
been somewhat more perfect, if I had been able to compose it in regular
order while in Peru; but a brutal major-general, who had served under
Gonzalo Pizarro[1], threatened to put any one to death who should presume
to write a history of his transactions, so that I was obliged to satisfy
myself with collecting all the documents I could procure for enabling me
to compose my history after returning into Spain. He was perhaps right in
wishing these transactions might fall into oblivion, instead of being
transmitted to posterity.
Should my style of writing be found not to possess all the polish that my
readers may desire, it will at least record the true state of events; and
I shall not be disappointed if it only serve to enable another to present
a history of the same period in more elegant language and more orderly
arrangement. I have principally directed my attention to a strict regard
for truth, the soul of history, using neither art nor disguise in my
description of things and events which I have seen and known; and in
relating those matters which happened before my arrival, I have trusted to
the information of dispassionate persons, worthy of credit. These were not
easy to find in Peru, most persons having received either benefits or
injuries from the party of Pizarro or that of Almagro; which were as
violent in their mutual resentments as the adherents of Marius and Sylla,
or of Caesar and Pompey of old.
In all histories there are three chief requisites: the designs, the
actions, and the consequences. In the two latter particulars I have used
all possible care to be accurate. If I may not always agree with other
authors in regard to the first of these circumstances, I can only say that
such is often the case with the most accurate and faithful historians.
After I had finished this work, it was my intention to have kept it long
unpublished, lest I might offend the families of those persons whose
improper conduct is therein pourtrayed. But some persons to whom I had
communicated my manuscript, shewed it to the king during his voyage to
England, who had it read to him as an amusement from the tiresomeness of
the voyage. My work had the good fortune to please his majesty, who
honoured it with his approbation, and graciously commanded me to have it
printed; and which I have the more readily complied with, as his royal
commands may protect my book from the cavils of the censorious readers.
* * * * *
Much difficulty occurs respecting the origin of the people who inhabited
Peru and the other provinces of America, and by what means their ancestors
could have crossed the vast extent of sea which separates that country
from the old world.
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