CHAPTER IV.

THE RESIDENCIA OF CORTEZ.-DEATH OF PONCE DE LEON. -CONFUSED STATE OF THE GOVERNMENT OF MEXICO.PONCE DE LEON'S INSTRUCTIONS ABOUT ENCOMIENDAS COME TO NAUGHT. ENCOMIENDAS ALLOWED BY THE SPANISH COURT.-AN AUDIENCIA CREATED FOR MEXICO.-INSTRUCTIONS TO THIS AUDIENCIA DO NOT VARY THE NATURE OF ENCOMIENDAS IN NEW SPAIN.

THE

HE residencia of Cortez was commenced; and during the whole time that it lasted (namely, seventeen days), not a single charge was brought against him.* In his fifth letter to the Emperor he successfully repels the accusations, made against him by "serpent tongues," with regard to his wealth and possessions, asserting that, if he has received much, he has spent much more; and that, too, not in buying heritages for himself, but in extending the patrimony of the king. He declares that, at the present moment, he is poor and much indebted.† Indeed, he makes

* "Y luego fué pregonado públicamente en la plaza de esta ciudad mi residencia, y estuve en ella diez y siete dias sin que se me pusiese demanda alguna."-Documentos Inéditos, tom. iv., p. 150.

"Y cuanto á lo que dicen de tener yo mucha parte de la tierra, así lo confieso, y que he habido harta suma y cantidad de oro; pero digo que no ha sido tanta que haya bastado para que yo deje de ser pobre y estar adeudado en mas de cincuenta mil pesos de oro sin tener un castellano de que pagarlo, porque si mucho he habido, muy mucho mas he gastado, y no en comprar mayorazgos ni otras rentas para mí, sino en dilatar por estas partes el señorío y patrimonio Real de V. A. conquistando con ello y con poner mi persona á muchos trabajos, riesgos y peligros, muchos reinos y señoríos para Vuestra Excelencia, los

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The "Residencia" of Cortez.

the following curious offer to the king. His majesty had been informed that Cortez possessed two hundred cuentos of rent, upon which Cortez offers to his majesty to commute all that he has for twenty cuentos of rent in New Spain,* or ten in the mother country.†

The residencia of Cortez, however, was broken off by an unexpected event. Ponce de Leon had been ill before this formal ceremony of taking the wands of justice; he returned to his apartments shivering and unable to eat. He threw himself on his bed, from which he was never to rise. The fever increased; in a few days it was evident that he was about to die ; and, summoning to his bedside the king's civil servants, in their presence he delivered his wand of office to Marcos de Aguilar,‡ and soon after expired. In those days eminent persons seldom died suddenly without the suspicion of their having been assisted out of the world; and as Ponce de Leon's death, at this juncture, was apparently convenient for Cortez, there

cuales no podrán encubrir los malos con sus serpentinas lenguas."Documentos Inéditos, tom. iv., p. 154.

* "Por tanto á V. M. suplico reciba en servicio todo cuanto yo acá tengo, y en esos reinos me haga merced de los veinte cuentos de renta, y quedarle han los ciento y ochenta, y yo serviré en la Real presencia de V. M. donde nadie pienso me hará ventajà ni tampoco podrá encubrir mis servicios, y aun para lo de acá pienso será V. M. de mí muy servido porque sabré como testigo de vista decir á V. A. lo que á su Real servicio conviene que acá mande proveer, y no podrá ser engañado por falsas relaciones."-Documentos Inéditos, tom. iv.,

p. 157. + "Digo que siendo V. M. servido de me hacer merced de me mandar dar en esos reinos diez cuentos de renta y que yo en ellos le vaya á servir, no será para mí pequeña merced con dejar todo cuanto acá tengo, porque de esta manera satisfaria mi deseo que es servir á V. M. en su Real presencia, y V. M. así mismo se satisfaria de mi lealtad y seria de mí muy servido.”—Relacion al EMPERADOR, por HERNAN CORTÉS, Doc. Inéd., tom. iv., p. 159.

"Marcos de Aguilar, cierto Letrado" (scholar, as distinguished from soldier).-REMESAL, Hist. de Chiapa y Guatemala, lib. i., cap. 7.

The "Residencia" of Cortez.

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were not wanting people-to use a Spanish phrase of that day-who probably believed and loudly asserted that the new governor had been poisoned by the man he came to supersede. This accusation, no doubt, traveled, with all the swiftness of malignity, to the Spanish court.

Calumny, which can not only make a cloud seem like a mountain, but can almost transform a cloud into a mountain, was often busy with the name of Cortez. This is the third time-I almost scorn to mention it —that he was accused of poisoning persons whose existence was supposed to be inconvenient to him.* Any man, however, who is much talked of, will be much misrepresented. Indeed, malignant intention is, unhappily, the least part of calumny, which has its sources in idle talk, playful fancies, gross misapprehensions, utter exaggerations, and many other rivulets of error that sometimes flow together into one huge river of calumniation, which pursues its muddy, mischievous course unchecked for ages.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, it was immediately a subject of discussion, as might have been foreseen, whether Ponce de Leon could delegate the power he had received from the Emperor. That question, after many juntas (for the disputed point is a difficult one), was determined in favor of Marcos de Aguilar, who was accordingly accepted as the governor. There is always, however, a loss of power in these transmissions of authority. The loss was not of much importance in the present case, for Marcos de Aguilar was a sickly man,†

* Francisco de Garay, and Catharine de Xuarez, the first wife of Cortez, were said to have been poisoned by him. These reports were utterly without foundation.

+"Estava tan doliente y hético, que le dava de mamar una muger

154

The "Residencia" of Cortez.

and the charge of such a difficult government so rapidly augmented his malady that he died about two months after his appointment. Again Cortez seemed to be delivered, by a happy accident, from the troubles of his residencia. Before his death, Marcos de Aguilar had, in his turn, taken care to nominate a successor, and had chosen the treasurer, Alonzo de Estrada. The question respecting the delegation of authority was renewed, and much disputed over. The result, too, was different, for it was at last agreed upon that Estrada should govern, but in concert with Gonzalo de Sandoval, and that Cortez should have charge of the government of the Indians and of the war department. Indeed, it appears as if the main body of the civil servants of Mexico wished that Cortez should resume the whole power which he had held before the arrival of Ponce de Leon until the Emperor should decide what was to be done. But Cortez very prudently refused, saying that "his fidelity and singleness of purpose would thus be more clearly manifested." This was the more self-denying on the part of Cortez, as it is probable, from what afterward occurred, that he knew he should find no friend in Alonzo de Estrada, although this was the same man in whom Cortez had placed such confidence, and whom he had left in authority when he undertook the journey to Honduras.

Alonzo de Estrada had not been long in office before a matter of dispute, originally trifling, arose, which carried the enmity of the governor and Cortez to a great height. An inhabitant of Mexico, named Diego de Figueroa, had a violent quarrel with Cristoval Cortejo, a servant of Sandoval, and therefore a dependent

de Castilla, y tenia unas cabras que tambien bebia leche dellas."-BERNAL DIAZ, cap. 193.

Banishment of Cortez.

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of Cortez. From words they proceeded to blows, and Figueroa was wounded. Estrada, with the utmost rashness, listening only to one side, and pronouncing sentence within an hour after the affair had occurred, ordered Cortejo's left hand to be cut off, and, after it had been cut off, sent him to prison, in order to enforce his departure from Mexico the next day, a punishment which the furious governor resolved to inflict, in addition to the mutilation that the poor man had already suffered. Not satisfied with this, Estrada, fearing that Cortez would not bear quietly such treatment of a follower, sent a notification to Cortez himself that he should quit Mexico, and, under penalty of his life, should not venture to contravene this order. The whole city was inflamed with rage at the conduct of the governor, and the inhabitants rushed to place themselves at the disposal of Cortez, threatening open rebellion; but Cortez, ever cautious, only hastened the more to depart, while the people were striving to prevent his departure.

Cortez having gone, and the inhabitants of Mexico being in the highest state of rage and disgust, the elements of a civil war were actively at work, when certain monks of the Order of St. Dominic, who, at the request of Cortez, had been sent from Spain in the company of Ponce de Leon, now interposed to check the tumult and to assuage the fury of the contending parties. Most of these monks had, like Ponce de Leon, been very ill on their arrival in the country; but the two who were most able to exert themselves on this occasion, Fathers Tomas Ortiz and Domingo de Betanzos-the second a name that will frequently occur in this history-succeeded in reconciling Cortez and Estrada, so much so that Cortez "drew out of the font"