For
This Purpose He Sent For And Discoursed With Alaminos, Who Had Been Our
Chief Pilot, From Whom He Received
So favourable an account of these
countries, that he sent Juan de Torralva, a person in whom he could
confide,
To solicit the bishop of Burgos to grant him a commission for
settling the country on the river of Panuco; and having succeeded in this
preliminary step, he fitted out an armament of three ships, with 240
soldiers, under the command of Alonzo Alvarez Pineda, who was defeated by
the Panuchese, one ship only escaping, which joined us at Villa Rica, as
already related. Receiving no intelligence of the fate of his first
armament, Garay sent a second, which also arrived at our port. Having now
expended a great deal of money to no purpose, and having learnt the good
fortune of Cortes, he became more than ever desirous to secure the
advantages he expected to derive from his commission. With this view he
fitted out thirteen ships, in which he embarked 136 cavalry, and 840 foot
soldiers, mostly musqueteers and crossbow-men, of which he took the
command in person. He sailed with this great armament from Jamaica, on the
24th June 1523, and arrived safe at the port of Xagua in the island of
Cuba, where he received information that Cortes had reduced the province
of Panuco to subjection, and had sent a petition to the emperor to get a
commission for governing his new acquisition. He was here informed of the
heroic deeds of Cortes and his companions, and in particular of our having
defeated the large force of Narvaez, while we had only 270 soldiers.
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