The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo Vol. 2

1/25/22, 8:50 PM The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Memoirs of the Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo written by himself, containing a true an…
papers, by which they would best be able toconvince themselves of the truth of what he had
said, and what bad usethe factor must have made of it, to serve his own ends.
As the factor and veedor were still kept in close confinement, andCortes, according to the
arrangements made by Leon in his will, could not at present continue the criminal suits
against those two persons,besides that he had many other unpleasant matters to attend to
just then, he determined to leave the case as it was until his majesty's further pleasure
should be known with regard to the government of New Spain.The whole of his time was
occupied for the present in reclaiming agreat part of his possessions which had been sold to
raise a fund thatprayers might be offered up in the churches for his departed soul; butthis
was done with an evil design, that people might think he was reallydead. All this property,
besides that which had been set apart for the masses for the repose of his soul, was
purchased by an inhabitant ofMexico named Juan Caceres the wealthy.
Diego de Ordas finding that Cortes, since the arrival of Leon, hadlost his former authority,
and that many persons had even the shamelessnessto neglect and make him feel the little
estimation in which they held him, he, with his usual dexterity of mind, profited by this
circumstance to regain the good graces of our general, and advised himto assume all the
outward splendour of a grandee, to receive his visitorsseated on a canopied throne, and not
to allow himself to be calledmerely Cortes, but to be addressed as Don Hernando Cortes.
He at the same time particularly reminded him that the factor was a creature of the
comendador-mayor Don Francisco de los Cobos, whose influencein Spain was immense.
The protection of such a man, he said,might perhaps be of the utmost importance to him, as
his majesty andthe council of the Indies were much prejudiced against him; it wouldbe
altogether injurious to his interests to act more severely against the factor than the law
permitted. This counsel Ordas thought proper togive Cortes, as it was generally suspected
in Mexico that he intendedputting the factor to death in his prison.
Before I proceed with my narrative I must inform the reader why,when speaking of Cortes,
I never call him Don Hernando Cortes, ormarquis, or by any other title, but plainly Cortes.
The reason is, thathe himself was best pleased when he was simply addressed as Cortes;
besides that, he was not created marquis until some time after, and thatthe name of Cortes
stood in equal renown throughout the whole of Spainat that time as in the Roman period
the names of Julius Cæsar and ofPompey; and in the Carthaginian as that of Hannibal; or,
in theearlier part of our history, the name of the valiant and invincibleknight Diego Garcia
de Paredes; or, in more recent times, the nameof Gonzalo Hernandez, surnamed the Great
Captain.
[Pg 318]
I must also not forget to mention that, about this time, the treasurer Alonso de Estrada
married one of his two daughters to Jorge de Alvarado, and the other to Don Luis de
Guzman, son of Don Juan de Saavedra, earl of Castellar. During the preliminaries of the
marriageit was likewise settled that Pedro de Alvarado should repair in personto Spain in
order to obtain from his majesty the appointment of governorof Guatimala for himself, and
that, during his absence, his brotherJorge was to take the chief command of this province,
and to continueto subdue the hostile tribes. The latter officer, indeed, immediately made
preparations for this purpose, and took along with him two hundredIndian auxiliaries from
Tlascalla, Mexico, and other provinces.
Marcos de Aguilar at the same time despatched a cavalier named Don Juan Enriquez de
Guzman, a near relation of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, into the province of Chiapa to
found a colony there. A similarexpedition Aguilar sent out under the command of Baltasar
Osorio, anobleman of Seville, to the province of Tabasco. A third expeditionhe sent out
under the command of Alonso Herrera, one of Cortes'soldiers, to subdue the Zapotecs, who
inhabit almost inaccessible mountains.I will relate how far these several officers succeeded,
in a subsequentpage. I must now speak of the speedy termination of Aguilar'sgovernment.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32475/32475-h/32475-h.htm 210/282