Alleged coiners, meaning plagiarists: Charles Lever and Melville's Pierre Glendinning

Besides designating a minter, a maker of money, coins, the term "coiner" may refer to an author as maker of words, and to a counterfeiter.

Each of the two usages quoted below occurs in a purely literary context, exploiting the double sense of "coiner" as author and counterfeiter:

"And D'Israeli, the younger, the sparkler! whose first book is his best and is immortal. I read an odd volume of Vivian Grey every year. 

"And Lever!—the bright coiner—so they say—of other men's ore! 

"And Cooper! the American Scott, who still more than his model, wrote his brain as dry as a broken ink stand!"  --Scenes Beyond the Western Border, September 1851 and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

"SIR:—You are a swindler. Upon the pretense of writing a popular novel for us, you have been receiving cash advances from us, while passing through our press the sheets of a blasphemous rhapsody, filched from the vile Atheists, Lucian and Voltaire. Our great press of publication has hitherto prevented our slightest inspection of our reader's proofs of your book. Send not another sheet to us. Our bill for printing thus far, and also for our cash advances, swindled out of us by you, is now in the hands of our lawyer, who is instructed to proceed with instant rigor.

(Signed)           STEEL, FLINT & ASBESTOS."

...

" —Now, then, where is this swindler's, this coiner's book? Here, on this vile counter, over which the coiner thought to pass it to the world, here will I nail it fast, for a detected cheat! And thus nailed fast now, do I spit upon it, and so get the start of the wise world's worst abuse of it!"  --Melville's Pierre (1852)

Chris Morash on Lever's Post-Famine Landscape:

"In 1843, Charles Gavan Duffy devoted an entire page of The Nation (which only ran to sixteen pages) to attacking the derivative and trivial nature of Lever's early work, his Lorrequers and his O'Malleys." --Charles Lever: New Evaluations, ed. Tony Bareham

lady mother

Queen Gertrude
Barbara Keith via Mosaic Tile Guide

The girl sits steadily sewing; neither she nor her two companions speak. Her eyes are mostly upon her work; but now and then a very close observer would notice that she furtively lifts them, and moves them sideways and timidly toward Pierre; and then, still more furtively and timidly toward his lady mother, further off. All the while, her preternatural calmness sometimes seems only made to cover the intensest struggle in her bosom.  (Pierre, 1852)

 Cub, A Tragedy in Three Acts:

It will be remembered by the patient and attentive future reader of this dry and methodical narrative, that its first appearance on any stage, was in "high" tragedy—that the first act embraced an unusual amount of sanguinary incident—that an innocent brother, (or sister,) being ruthlessly slain, and the baffled lady-mother left (unceremoniously) full of towering and demonstrative rage,— the imprisoned hero himself sank overwhelmed,—or in a well-acted counterfeit of death....

--Scenes Beyond the Western Border, March 1853; and Scenes and Adventures in the

Updated 12/28/2017 with a link to the website of great Minnesota artist Bebe (Barbara Benson) Keith:

• Bebe Keith

Barbara Keith Mosaics from Maria Bartholdi on Vimeo.

Mirage and Looming, Explained in Cooke's 1843 Santa Fe Journal

Prairie Scene: Mirage
Alfred Jacob Miller, c. 1858-60

Page 28

June 21. ...
... I have never seen an attempt to explain the “mirage,” which here, as on on [sic] the sandy plains of Asia, deceive the eye with the semblance of white sheets of water: on a hot day we see an appearance of steam or vapour rising from a hill,—no matter how near, if relieved by the sky, just as from a hot stove. I conceive it to be exhalations of moisture & the usual vapours of the atmosphere put in visible motion by the radiated caloric; when there is an expanse of nearly plain surface, a vast amount of this moving vapour is seen at once, and, no longer translucent, assumes the appearance of a white plain,— of steam,—or water. Thus too, by the refraction of light passing through an aqueous medium, is easily explained the “looming” of objects on the plains & hill tops: a crow, or a weed, is frequently mistaken for a buffalo, or a horseman.

Now that's what the genuine Captain Cooke sounds like. Real prairie writing, transcribed from the manuscript of Cooke's 1843 Santa Fe journal. Manuscript reports of 1843 survive in the National Archives and are now accessible at fold3.  For the summer expedition, see Letters to the Adjutant General 1822-1860: 1843/C/ Cooke, P St G (C252).  For the fall 1843 march, see Cooke's report dated October 26, 1843 in Letters to the Adjutant General 1822-1860: 1843/C/Cooke, P St G (C307).

Parts I-IV, the first four installments, of Scenes Beyond the Western Border are rewritten from these 1843 reports.

Both the summer and fall reports of 1843 were edited by William E. Connelley and published as "A Journal of the Santa Fe Trail" in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review 12 (June 1925): 72-98; and 12 (September 1925): 227-255.

Cooke's 1843 journal of the summer expedition only was also published in J. M. Lowe, The National Old Trails Road (Kansas City, 1925) as

"An Interesting Military Excursion"

Criticism of G. P. R. James

Late in 1851, G. P. R. James was another idol of Berkshire, like Hawthorne and Melville.  Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker observe that Herman Melville's mother Maria

"bestowed high respect on any man of high literary reputation and unimpeachable Christian principles, such as G. P. R. James, the popular novelist who had recently settled near Stockbridge." (Reading Melville's Pierre, 13)

Higgins and Parker cite Parker's biography (1.829-30) on Maria Melville's regard for James as "the great novelist." She called him that in a letter to her daughter, Herman Melville's sister Augusta. At one point in the letter, Maria describes a party where the Melvilles socialized with the great novelist's wife, but missed the absent Mr. James.

At his blog Fragments from a Writing Desk, Parker gives more of the 5 November 1851 letter from Maria Melville to Augusta. Here's some of it, including Maria's reference to G. P. R. James as "the great novelist":

Mrs James is agreeable, does not dress well, is thin, but badly form'd, her rich silk dress was not well made. . . . Mr James has purchase'd a farm near Stockbridge, his son is to manage it. The author is going to build upon this farm & locate himself permanently on the expiration of their present lease--which was taken for two years.
Mr & Mrs Sedgwick on the entrance of Mrs James both ask'd for her husband, she slowly & very quietly said, Mr James beg'd me to say that he had "commenced a new book to day," & could not break out on any account. Bessie Sedgwick says he snuffs to such a degree that his bosom is cover'd with the dust, and you can't help inhaling some of the particles when you sit beside him. Our disappointment was very great at not seeing the great novelist. (transcribed by Hershel Parker)

Two months later, James receives detailed consideration in the January 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border, when the narrating captain of dragoons dissects James's 1843 novel The False Heir in conversation about books and authors with his Imaginary Friend. I. F. for short.

Verbal and thematic connections to Melville's writings are demonstrated in previous posts on the quirk of repeating speech and the complaint about artificial plot twists. What strikes me now is the timing of the criticism, and its evident importance to the writer or more likely the ghostwriter. In the 1857 book version, this unusual significance is attested by the synoptic chapter headings in the table of contents, where the dialogue is described as Criticism of J. P. R. James.

The 1859 printing is the same except for the title page (updated to reflect Philip St George Cooke's promotion to Colonel) and repeats the error of J. P. R. instead of the correct G. P. R. for George Payne Rainsford James. Not exactly a common error, though Allen Cunningham's 1834 Biographical and Critical History provides one early example of the same thing.

UPDATE: James's offending sentence on the bad influence of Americanism, which supposedly undermines social order and high culture, is the sort of thing Melville argued against in the first book of Pierre. There Melville self-consciously aimed to "poetically establish the richly aristocratic condition of Master Pierre Glendinning." (Pierre, 1852)  And he kept at it. Trying still to counter the kind of disdain for "Americanism" that James had coolly exhibited in The False Heir, Melville urged Richard Bentley to consider the popular appeal of his new book as a treatment of

"a new & elevated aspect of American life." (April 16, 1852)

January 1852:

I. F. — What would you give to see a late paper?

"You have me there! I have a weakness for a damp newspaper; — let me see — it is now eight weeks since we have had news. But I discovered a copy of James's False Heir with my baggage; that, in my mental famine, has been quite a feast."

I. F. — Do you like it ?

"I think he has exhausted his best powers: the plot turns solely on a worn-out incident; the real or pretended substitution of infants. James has at last committed the folly, which, first or last, all the British authors seem to fall into — I mean a sneer, or slander, on us Americans. Strange, indeed, that a writer who has made friends of the readers of a great nation, should without any good object turn their finer feelings into contempt or anger, by a few motions of his pen. Ah! deliver us from the temptation of a sneer! But this is coolly and deliberately done."

I. F. — And what is it?

"I say Americanism advisedly; for republicanism is a very different thing, and does not imply a rejection of refinement in the higher classes of society." [quoting James as narrator in The False Heir]

I. F. — He pins his faith then upon the mercenary class of tourists; for he has never visited us. Did you ever remark that his valets are often the most intelligent and quickwitted of his characters?

"It is the case in this very work. The hero is a lad of seventeen; old enough to fall in love, and but little else. St. Medard is a mere abstraction, De Langy a cipher, Artonne a riddle, Monsieur L. a man in a mask who puts himself in the way sufficiently to give some interesting trouble and help out the plot. In the most commonplace manner, he has thrown the hero and favorite characters into difficulties for the transparent object of a final triumph; he disinherits the hero, shipwrecks his best friend, St. Medard; confines Artonne in prison for murder, and last, not least, sends his best-drawn character, Marois [Marais], to the galleys!

I. F. — James has an extraordinary habit of making his spokesmen repeat the first sentence of their speeches, thus — "I don't know, sir; I don't know, sir," — "That's a pity — that's a pity !" Since I have noticed it, it always makes me nervous!

"One of the last announcements I read before I left home, was, that he had engaged to write a 'serial' for the Dublin University Magazine; sorry I am, but such is the accustomed drivel of exhausted minds."

I. F. — After all, James has been a most effective moralist; and we owe him much.

you fly from me (in extravagant imagery and metaphors of love)

Another item for the list of things deleted in revision of Scenes Beyond the Western Border but appearing in Melville's Pierre. Several bits later deleted in revision are from the August 1852 installment, which appeared almost simultaneously with Pierre, first published at the end of July 1852.

Scenes Beyond the Western Border:

C. " Beauty! I worship beauty! I enjoy it in the tiny flower—it absorbs me in the bright spring landscape, where Nature has kindly played the artist, or in the sunset clouds which methinks good angels paint in heaven's own colours; it enchants me in smiling eyes and lips wreathing their divine intelligence with a halo of love!" 

F. "Bravo!" 

C. "Thus love at last, as love at first—all absorbing—feeding upon music,—sporting with war;—love, the link of earth to heaven,—love is all in all!" 

(F. "He must have been reading Saint John!") 

C. "The beauty, then, which now soothes me momentarily, is but a sweet minister to the soul—to which absence is the doomed evil, but space immaterial—and leads it with a melancholy joy, to the imaginative communion of love."

F.  "When I have you committed, fairly pinned in contradiction, you fly off into a maze of extravagant fancies, where I should be lost as well if I followed." 
(August 1852)

 Melville's Pierre:

"Fie, now, Pierre; why should ye youths always swear when ye love!"

"Because in us love is profane, since it mortally reaches toward the heaven in ye!"

"There thou fly'st again, Pierre; thou art always circumventing me so...." (Pierre, 1852)

In the 1857 book version, instead of the line about flying off into extravagant fancies, the Captain's imaginary friend says this:

Friend. — You are a monomaniac, by Jove! incapable of argument, or even conversation. 

" I detest argument! it is the favorite resort of fools, to convince — themselves."

critics with goosequills

Critics? —Asses! rather mules!—so emasculated, from vanity, they can not father a true thought. Like mules, too, from dunghills, they trample down gardens of roses: and deem that crushed fragrance their own—Oh! that all round the domains of genius should lie thus unhedged, for such cattle to uproot! Oh! that an eagle should be stabbed by a goose-quill! But at best, the greatest reviewers but prey on my leavings. For I am critic and creator; and as critic, in cruelty surpass all critics merely, as a tiger, jackals.
(Mardi)

I. F. "Well, failing to accomplish the object of the escort, you would have pointed to your orders?"

"Yes, but success is the military test, touchstone, talisman! If disaster had occurred, a thousand judges with goosequill in hand and printing press at elbow,—if they had noticed,would have condemned me unheard: the soldiers of a Republic have a narrow path to follow, and answer to two tribunals—the Government and the people."
(Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Sept 1851; and Scenes and Adventures)

Image credit: G. Greatbach from a drawing by J. Mason after H. Plancquet (1852).
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?822655

of a pleasant evening

Add this, "of a pleasant _______ evening" to the list of things deleted in revision of Scenes Beyond the Western Border that appear in Pierre.  Along with the embrace of enthusiasm.

August 1852:

C. " ... You will allow me at least, on your own recommendation to note the fact in my journal?" 

F. " Of course; but with becoming modesty. It is enough to ruffle one, to have such a long word thrust at him, of a pleasant summer evening, and a thousand miles from a library." 

C. "But, good heavens! do not condemn a word for its length. Paleontology is an almost poetical triumph, which throws an attractive grace over the sterility of geognostic investigations and symbols on the human tombs, which throw beams of startling light over the obscurity of fabulous antiquity,—so when we discover the traces or remains of existing, or the extinct life of the old world, their natural tombs—the fossil rocks—are monuments on which Time thus records their relative ages. It is a beautiful chronometry of the earth's surface!"  (Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1852)

Pierre (1852):

On some distant business, with a farmer-tenant, he had been absent from the mansion during the best part of the day, and had but just come home, early of a pleasant moonlight evening, when Dates delivered a message to him from his mother, begging him to come for her about half-past seven that night to Miss Llanyllyn's cottage, in order to accompany her thence to that of the two Miss Pennies.  (Pierre)

While we're at it, let's add "chronometry" as well, also deleted in revision of Scenes Beyond the Western Border for the 1857 book:

Friend.—I am decidedly non-committal; but it is enough to ruffle one, to have such a long word thrust at him, amid all the charm of a complete laisser aller in a glorious wilderness, a thousand miles from all the schools of pedantic, groping, and guessing philosophy.

"But, good heavens! do not condemn a word for its length. Paleontology is an almost poetical triumph, which throws an attractive grace over the sterility of geognostic investigation. As we eagerly decipher the inscriptions and symbols on the human tombs, which throw beams of startling light over the obscurity of fabulous antiquity;—so, when we discover the traces or remains of the extinct life of the old world, their natural tombs—the fossil rocks—are monuments by which Time thus records their relative ages."

Friend. —Allow me then a few years of devotion to the study of the analysis of primitive zoology and botany, and I will then, if possible, give you my speculations with all the boldness of poetical science upon the formation and age of the continent—all by the light of your chronological, fossiliferous, infernal shell!
(Scenes and Adventures in the Army 360)

See, no more reference to chronometry after revision. Plenty of references to chronometry in Pierre, however, once Melville introduces and begins to describe the damaged pamphlet of Plotinus Plinlimmon titled CHRONOMETRICALS AND HOROLOGICALS.

"Bacon's brains were mere watch-maker's brains; but Christ was a chronometer; and the most exquisitely adjusted and exact one, and the least affected by all terrestrial jarrings, of any that have ever come to us." 

(from Plinlimmon's pamphlet-lecture on Chronometricals and Horologicals in Pierre)

who lives...

The universe is all of one mind. Though my twin-brother sware to me, by the blazing sun in heaven at noon-day, that Oro is not; yet would he belie the thing he intended to express. And who lives that blasphemes? What jargon of human sounds so puissant as to insult the unutterable majesty divine? Is Oro's honor in the keeping of Mardi?--

(Mardi, 1849)

C. "But who lives, who may not be wounded through another!—Then so be it! let us treat the whole world as it has done us, and—forget it! I dare say, nay, I am sure, that beyond some family ties, there is not upon the wide earth a heart in sympathy with our good or ill; whose even beat would be as much disturbed, were this wild sod to cover us forever, as at the most ephemeral of the trifling cares which make up their petty lives."
(Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1852); and Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

Philip St George Cooke's June 24, 1864 letter to the Adjutant General

as head of recruiting service, proposing swift capital punishment for deserters to stop bounty jumping:

Page 3

General Cooke's cure for rampant bounty jumping, June 1864

Biographer Otis E. Young references Alson B. Ostrander for the period of 1864-1866 when Philip St George Cooke headed the army recruiting station in New York City.  More remains to be told from Cooke's numerous letters to the Adjutant General's Office which are held by the National Archives and now available online through fold3.

To stop the plague of bounty jumping, General Cooke wrote on June 24, 1864 to recommended more stringent punishment for deserters: hang them by the dozen at the Battery on Fridays.

H[ea]d Q[uarte]rs Gen Rec[ruit]ng Service
New York June 24. '64

To the Adjutant General

U. S. Army

Wash.n City

I cannot ascertain that there are any existing orders for measures toward the detection & apprehension of deserters; such as a report of names & description to the Asst. Pro[vost] Marshall General or the police department here; or the publication of names, &c., in a police Gazette, or otherwise.

The recruiting Service, at present, leads to a system of robbery of the Nation, on a gigantic scale; by a class, thus fostered, of cowardly and perjured swindlers—

Take the last return of the 5^th U. S. Artillery, as a sample: 31 enlisted in City of N. York, & 24 of them deserted, & thus committed a robbery of $7800.

In mercy to the country, and to the Army—where hundreds daily die, or are crippled & need support—this wholesale desertion should be stopped by administering justice: a dozen men shot, or hanged, at the Battery, each friday for about three weeks, might cure the great evil. Thus, in the long run, our country may gain as much by the deaths of 36 deserters & robbers, as it does by the deaths of as many hundreds of its brave soldiers.

Very respectfully

P St Geo Cooke
Brig Gen USA S. R. S. [Superintendent Recruiting Service]

(Letters Received by the Adjutant General, 1861-1870.
1864/C/Cooke, Philip St Geo R429 at fold3)

Mardi-style dialogue in Scenes Beyond the Western Border

The astounding prairie dialogues of the Captain and his Imaginary Friend have no counterpart in anything else attributed to Cooke.


April 1852:

C.  "Amigo Mio!  Didn't you desert me on the eve of a snow storm, like many another friend of so honest mouthing!  And is a touch of poetry a bad companion in difficulty and trial?  Never a bit; it was the boon of a God — Wisdom was ever feminine."

I. F.  "Phew!  The fit is on!  Sorry I said a word! I supposed frost and starved horses—the sight of poor women to-day trudging the weary road —the driving poor beef instead of the spirit striving chase, would have tempered you to the philosophy of a very materialist, (male or female.")  --Scenes Beyond the Western Border, April 1852; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

January 1852:

 ... "I conceived hopes of you, that the poetic spirit was layed; and when at supper to-night you ate so heartily of the elk-steak, I little thought you had been indulging again in such pathetic" —

"Pshaw! it serves for a gilding to Life's bitter pill! The delicious supper should have mended your humour: for I stake my reputation on it— as 'guide, surgeon and hunter'"—

Imaginary Friend. "And butcher" —

—" That the flesh, cooked, as it was, with a little pork, cannot be distinguished from that of the fattest buffalo cow that ever surrendered tongue and marrow-bones to hungry hunter.

I. F. Bravo! I have hopes of you! Kill your meat with a good conscience, and daily labour and excitement over, solid indeed is the hunter's comfort!...
--January 1852; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

But Mardi abounds in just this kind of talk. In the examples below, see in particular how Melville similarly deployed references to another speaker's "fit"; and the optimistic turn of phrase, "I have hopes..." In Mardi as in Scenes Beyond the Western Border, the "fit" is alleged behavior of the traveling philosopher, while the line "I have hopes" is said by a realist.

... The universe is all of one mind. Though my twin-brother sware to me, by the blazing sun in heaven at noon-day, that Oro is not; yet would he belie the thing he intended to express. And who lives that blasphemes? What jargon of human sounds so puissant as to insult the unutterable majesty divine? Is Oro's honor in the keeping of Mardi? — Oro's conscience in man's hands? Where our warrant, with Oro's sign- manual, to justify the killing, burning, and destroying, or far worse, the social persecutions we institute in his behalf? Ah! how shall these self-assumed attorneys and vicegerents be astounded, when they shall see all heaven peopled with heretics and heathens, and all hell nodding over with miters! Ah! let us Mardians quit this insanity. Let us be content with the theology in the grass and the flower, in seed-time and harvest. Be it enough for us to know that Oro indubitably is. My lord! my lord! sick with the spectacle of the madness of men, and broken with spontaneous doubts, I sometimes see but two things in all Mardi to believe:—that I myself exist, and that I can most happily, or least miserably exist, by the practice of righteousness. All else is in the clouds; and naught else may I learn, till the firmament be split from horizon to horizon. Yet, alas! too often do I swing from these moorings." 

"Alas! his fit is coming upon him again," whispered Yoomy. 

"Why, Babbalanja," said Media, "I almost pity you. You are too warm, too warm. Why fever your soul with these things? .... (Mardi, Babbalanja Discourses in the Dark)

"Profane jester! Would'st thou insult me with thy torn-foolery? Begone—all of ye! tramp! pack! I say: away with ye!" and into the woods Doxodox himself disappeared. 

"Bravely done, Babbalanja!" cried Media. "You turned the corner to admiration." 

"I have hopes of our Philosopher yet," said Mohi. 

"Outrageous impostor! fool, dotard, oaf! Did he think to bejuggle me with his preposterous gibberish? And is this shallow phraseman the renowned Doxodox whom I have been taught so highly to reverence? Alas, alas—Odonphi there is none!" 

"His fit again," sighed Yoomy.  (Mardi, They Visit One Doxodox)

keen relish

Old Maga--God bless his cocked hat!--shakes his venerable head sagatiously, notwithstanding his keen relish for the humourous.
(1847 letter to John Murray, Selected Melville Letters)

It is wonderful how many go through the world with eyes shut, with minds unawake; but without the keen relish of the beautiful, without souls sensitive of lofty emotion, they have the enjoyments of animals, and are dull to painful reactions.  (Scenes Beyond the Western Border, May 1852)

Tribute to Cortez (only excelled by Caesar) in May 1852

The August 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border holds up Cortez (Hernán Cortés) as the model hero. As suggested in previous posts here and here, Cortez is recalled in the prairie talk of August 1852 as a great champion of belief and enthusiasm. This association of Cortez with enthusiasm intriguingly corresponds to Melville's enthusiast hero Pierre and the main theme of his poem "The Enthusiast."

I forgot about this riff on Cortez in another, earlier installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border:

But the prairie does not always charm the eye or the imagination: often its sameness and the monotony of slow motion, lull us to dreamy thought, then, happily, we create of solitude, a world of our own; or people it with the loved absent, or the long dead. To-day, by an easy association, I dreamed of the old warrior explorers from Spain—'ere her glory died—of De Soto Cortez, and others. Hernando Cortez! What a name is there! What hero of antiquity excelled him? None but Caesar: his military genius resembled Alexander's; but—as in the comparison of our Washington with the world's Captains with an allowance for the scale of action and of means. (His passage of the Delaware and subsequent campaign gave indications of what he might have done!) The master-stroke of the career of Cortez, was his desperate march to Vera Cruz, his attack and defeat of the braggart Narvaez and his vastly superior numbers. Truly, his were enthusiastic genius, energy and constancy, beyond all proportion to what Providence implants or requires in man in ordinary times. In the world's story, among all wondrous events, in Mexico alone History and Romance form an unity. And Cortez, like Columbus, was self-made; he forced his way over great obstacles, with which that age heaped the paths of aspirants from the low classes.
(Scenes Beyond the Western Border, May 1852; and Scenes and Adventures)

 

Columbus ended earth's romance:
No New World to mankind remains!" (Clarel)

more on Cortez and enthusiasm in August 1852

That allusion to Cortez (Hernán Cortés) and conspiracy in the August 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border probably refers to the 1521 assassination plot led by Antonio de Villafana. Many versions of the story exist, in poetry as well as prose, including a volume of Uncle Philip's Conversations.  According to William Robertson, Cortes learned of the plot and

repaired instantly to Villefagna's [Robertson's spelling] quarters, accompanied by some of his most trusty officers. The astonishment and confusion of the man at this unexpected visit anticipated the confession of his guilt. Cortes, while his attendants seized the traitor, snatched from his bosom a paper, containing the association, signed by the conspirators. Impatient to know how far the infection extended, he retired to read it, and found there names which filled him with surprise and sorrow. But aware how dangerous a strict scrutiny might prove at such a juncture, he confined his judicial inquiries to Villefagna alone. As the proofs of his guilt were manifest, he was condemned after a short trial, and next morning he was seen hanging before the door of the house in which he had lodged. Cortes called his troops together, and having explained to them the atrocious purpose of the conspirators, as well as the justice of the punishment inflicted on Villefagna, he added, with an appearance of satisfaction, that he was entirely ignorant with respect to all the circumstances of this dark transaction, as the traitor, when arrested, had suddenly torn and swallowed a paper which probably contained an account of it, and under the severest tortures possessed such constancy as to conceal the names of his accomplices. This artful declaration restored tranquility to many a breast that was throbbing, while he spoke, with consciousness of guilt and dread of detection; and by this prudent moderation, Cortes had the advantage of having discovered, and of being able to observe such of his followers as were disaffected; while they, flattering themselves that their past crime was unknown, endeavoured to avert any suspicion of it by redoubling their activity and zeal in his service.  (William Robertson)

Some accounts emphasize that Cortés only pretended that Villafana had swallowed the paper naming the conspirators. According to Prescott, Villafana actually did attempt to swallow the paper.

A review of Prescott in the Southern Quarterly Review reports that Cortés "destroyed the scroll" without stating how:

He destroyed the scroll, and contented himself with the execution of the one ringleader. The conspirators trembled, but without cause. The magnanimous judgment of Cortes forbore farther inquiry. In an address to his troops, he told them that the guilty man had made no confession. His admirable policy never once suffered them to suppose that he had any suspicion of the guilty parties

Other sources likewise credit the actions of Cortés as great "policy." One biography refers to the ingested paper ruse as a "master stroke of policy,"  again the word used in the 1852 dialogue of C. and F. 

So far I have not found any report saying that Cortés burned the evidence of conspiracy, unread.

Possibly the reference in Scenes Beyond the Western Border merges two averted rebellions from the history of Cortes and the Spanish conquest of Mexico. First confronted with conspiracy, Cortés famously destroyed his fleet at Veracruz to prevent discontented men from deserting to Cuba. Legend has it that Cortés burned his ships. Even now "burn the ships" or something to the effect of burning your boats is a proverb of business success and life wisdom.  Nit-pickers insist Cortes scuttled his ships but did not actually set fire to them:

There is a popular misconception that Cortés burned the ships instead of scuttling them. This may have come from a mistranslation of the version of the story written in Latin.  (New World Encyclopedia)

Here again is the 1852 text as first printed in the Southern Literary Messenger:

F. " At last you have struck a chord that answers as to the touch of truth! And as for love, I know none better than that of the she-bear for her cub; and that lasts, and is returned, just so long as circumstance and interest bind."

C. "O! my friend! Is there not then a pure soul-love, a deathless friendship, "passing the love of women," which all life's trials and the world's baseness cannot soil or sap? If that be truth, 'twere better never to look into her Medusa face! O! better to cherish enthusiasm, (despite the sneers and ridicule of cold, calculating woman;) better, (as it would become) a blind heroism of credulity! Ay, a heroism of policy, —like that of the great Cortez, who burnt, unread, the proofs of a conspiracy, rather than embrace damning doubt."
(Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1852); and with significant revisions in Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

1857 book version:

"If that were truth, better never to look into her Medusa face; better to cherish illusion: blind credulity would be heroism! ay,—and policy,—like that of the great Cortez, who burnt the proofs of a conspiracy, rather than foster damning doubt."