Putaverim hinc...

[Subcontrary]

I have a few questions about this sentence:

"Putaverim hinc, Diabolum satius fecisse, si sexum priorem aliqua ratione diffamare et feminino sexu inferiorem reddere conetur."

The first is what reason there might be for the use of the first person singular in "Putaverim;" the rest of the document is in first person plural.

The second is how it compares to the French translation: "Je suis enclin à penser que le Diable devrait faire amende honorable en s'efforçant plutôt de rabaisser, et avec quelque raison, le premiere sexe, et de le rendre inférieur au sexe feminin."

The third is what the heck is wrong with my translation: "Because of this, I maintain rather that the Devil had done it, if for some reason he might try to defame the prior sex, and to render it inferior to the feminine sex."

I don't see where the "si" from the Latin went into the French, and I don't know where the sense of expediency that "devrait" adds in the French can be found in the Latin.

As usual, I cannot thank you enough for helping me translate this crazy thing.

 

[Dantius]

Where does this text come from? I cannot find it on the internet.

satius can mean "better" or "preferable", so I think the sense is meant to be something like "Because of this, I maintain that the Devil would have done better, if he tried to...", i.e. "It would have been better for the Devil to...".
But I'm not 100% sure of that interpretation, since the sequence of tenses is weird and I don't have the context.

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

I cannot find it on the internet.

I can. The long S probably confuses it.

 

[Dantius]

Ah.

 

[Pacifica]

Where does this text come from? I cannot find it on the internet.

satius can mean "better" or "preferable", so I think the sense is meant to be something like "Because of this, I maintain that the Devil would have done better, if he tried to...", i.e. "It would have been better for the Devil to...".
But I'm not 100% sure of that interpretation, since the sequence of tenses is weird and I don't have the context.

The tenses are weird indeed, but your interpretation is basically right, though "It would be better..." is perhaps more likely.

I think the French translation is wrong-ish. I can't see anything in the original that suggests "faire amende honorable". I think the translator got satius fecisse confused with satis fecisse since satis facere indeed means something like "faire amende honorable". I'm also pretty sure that aliqua ratione = "by some means", "par quelque moyen", rather than "avec quelque raison". Here I think the translator got tricked by the false friend ratio.