We Deprecated The Interference Of The Bishop In The
Affairs Of New Spain, Which Had Already Obstructed Our Efforts Of Conquest
In The Service Of His Majesty, And Had Manifested Great Enmity Against Us
By Prohibiting The Casa De Contratation Of Seville From Sending Us Any
Supplies.
We concluded by declaring ourselves ready to receive his
majesties commands with the most perfect submission and obedience, but that
we had deemed it our bounden duty to lay all these particulars before his
majesty, which had hitherto been artfully kept from his knowledge.
On his
part, Cortes sent a memorial to the king of twenty-one pages long, in
which he left no argument unemployed to serve his own and our interest. He
even requested permission to go over to the island of Cuba, and to send
the governor Velasquez a prisoner to Spain, that he might be tried and
punished for the injuries he had done to the public service, and
especially for having sent an order to put Cortes to death.
Our agents sailed from Vera Cruz on the 20th December 1522, and no
particular occurrence happened on the voyage to the Terceras or Acores,
except that one of the tigers broke loose and wounded some of the sailors,
who were likewise obliged to kill the other on account of its ferocity. At
the island of Tercera, Captain Quinones lost his life in a duel,
occasioned by a quarrel about a lady, by which means our business was left
in the hands of Alonzo de Avila. In continuing his voyage to Europe, he
was taken by a French privateer, commanded by one Jean Florin, who took
another ship from Hispaniola with a valuable cargo of sugar and hides, and
20,000 crowns in gold, and many pearls; so that with this and our treasure
he returned very rich to France, where he made magnificent presents to the
king and admiral of France, astonishing every body at the magnificence of
the presents which we had transmitted for our emperor. The king of France
observed on this occasion, that the wealth which we supplied from New
Spain was alone sufficient to enable our sovereign to wage war against him,
although Peru was not then discovered. It was also reported that the king
of France sent a message to our emperor, saying, That as he and the king
of Portugal had divided the world between them, he desired to see the will
of our father Adam, to know if he had made them exclusively his heirs. In
his next expedition, Florin was made prisoner by a strong squadron
belonging to Biscay, and was hanged in the island of Teneriffe.
Avila was made a close prisoner in France, but by gaining the friendship
of the officer to whose custody he had been confided, he was enabled to
correspond with his friends in Spain, to whom he transmitted all the
documents with which he had been entrusted, which were all laid before the
emperor Don Carlos by Martin Cortes, our generals father, and Diego de
Ordas, by means of the licentiate Nunez, _relator_ of the royal council,
who was cousin to Cortes.
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