When in 1808 Napoleon replaced the unfortunate Bourbon King, Charles IV, by his own brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Spain, he undoubtedly was not unmindful of the Spanish possessions in America. Without them Spain would be no more than a second rate power. Mexican silver must have lured the French Emperor, who like all conquerors was in constant need of money. The wealth of the Indies was one of the arguments he used in order to convince Joseph to give up the Crown of Naples for that of Spáin. Furthermore, it had been for many years the dream of French merchants to trade with the distant and wealthy lands which the poorly documented work of the Abbé de Raynal, Histoire Philosophique … had made quite popular in Europe by the end of the eighteenth century.

Books of travel and books inspired by travel have probably been more popular in Great Britain than any other literary form, with the exception of novels.

This was especially true in the nineteenth century, when travel, owing to the lack of today's facilities, was reserved for the relative few. During that period, photography had not yet replaced the written word, as is happening in our own generation. The nineteenth-century Englishman wandered through the medium of a travel book and not through newsreels, travelogues, and even full-length movies. Today, the Englishman, like the American, is able to sit in his living room and see the world on his television screen. He is not dependent on literature to the extent that his grandfather or great-grandfather was. For the Englishman of the nineteenth century, therefore, travel literature was very important. Often, these books furnished the only source of information concerning strange lands and strange peoples.

The geographical configuration of a territory undoubtedly has great influence on events there. Geography guides migration, decides the economic life of the region, weakens or strengthens its people, and opens or closes the roads to cultural influences and to foreign invasions.

On the other hand the influence of “false geography,” that is the mistaken ideas of the location of a certain territory, carried on by tradition penetrates the minds of people and lures them to attempt enterprises they would not try otherwise. And even though these projects originate in erroneous, objectively false concepts, they still produce important historical events of decisive importance.

Driven by a spirit of nationalism and romanticism and stimulated by certain literary sources, many of North America's first poets, those of the revolutionary, national, and early romantic periods of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (until ca. 1830) sought inspiration in the Hispanic world. There they found some seven themes for verses, which today, with the possible exception of Freneau's and Bryant's, may seem of questionable aesthetic value. But because of these poets' interpretation of and surprisingly great concern for things Spanish, their works are of considerable historical interest.

Bibliographers record only two items in English out of the thousands of publications that appeared in New Spain from 1539 to 1821: (1) a 1784 English translation of the sixth article of the 1783 peace treaty concluded between Spain and England, and (2) a brief catechism of Catholic doctrine published in 1787 or shortly after. Both appeared in Mexico City. I have found no reference to any other imṕrint in English issuing from the Mexican colonial presses. I consulted the first in the splendid collection of Señor Martín Carrancedo of Mexico City and the second in the library of the Historical Institute of the Society of Jesus in Rome.