Excerpt from Fernando Cortes: And the Conquest of Mexico, 1485-1547 Pain held the dominant place amongst European states in the first half of the sixteenth century, and she was prolific in great men, who governed at home or extended her power abroad. Among the latter, Fernando Cortes was easily the greatest, and the story of his life is a chronicle of deeds of heroism and sheer daring, to which history offers few parallels. In the work of overturning the mili tary and religious despotism of Montezuma, some terrible deeds were done. Similar acts of severity and cruelty, however, blot the fame of great leaders in most wars, ancient and modern. Some of the material used in the following brief story of the conqueror's life has already appeared in the biographical note to the Letters of Cortes, the favourable reception of which by students of American history, has encouraged me to prepare the present work in a more popular form. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.