One Cardenas, A Pilot, Who Had A Wife And
Children, Seeing That All The Immense Treasure Of Montezuma Had Dwindled
Down To Paltry Shares Of A Hundred Crowns, Made Loud Complaints Of The
Injustice He And All Of Us Had Experienced.
On this coming to the ears of
Cortes, he called us together, and gave us a long honied speech,
Wondering
how we should be so clamorous about a paltry sum of gold, as the whole
country, with all its rich mines, would soon be ours, by which we would
all have enough to make us lords and princes, and I know not all what.
After this he distributed presents secretly among the most clamorous, and
promised Cardenas to send home 300 crowns to his wife and children.
All men are desirous of acquiring riches, and the desire generally
increases with the acquisition. As it was well known that a great many
valuable pieces of gold had been abstracted from the treasury, suspicion
naturally fell upon several persons who appeared to have more gold than
their shares amounted to. Among these, it was noticed that Velasquez de
Leon had some large chains of gold, and many trinkets and ornaments of
that metal, in the hands of the Mexican workmen, which the treasurer Mexia
claimed as having been purloined. De Leon resisted this, alleging that it
had been given him by Cortes before the gold was run into bars. Mexia
replied that Cortes had concealed enough, and had already taken too much
from the soldiers, without giving him so great a quantity, and insisted on
restitution.
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