SOURCE: "The Spanish Captain's Story," in The Guardian Weekly, Vol. 135, No. 26, December 28, 1986, p. 22.

In the following essay, Fuentes examines what he sees as the "democratic essence of Machiavellianism " that prompted the actions and writings of men like Cortés.

Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, was seven years old when Columbus set foot in the New World. He came from a modest family in a modest town of barren Extremadura. At nineteen, he left home for the Indies. His Spanish inheritance was a vine and a beehive. In the New World, he conquered an empire nine times the size of Spain.

The letters sent by Cortes to Emperor Charles V between 1519 and 1526, in Anthony Pagden's definitive translation, tell the tale of this conquest with self-serving vigour, a dash of mythologising, and a subtle sense of legitimation. It all adds up to one of the most fascinating Machiavellian documents...