power should take this as a lesson"; "Cortes has mastered us in a worse defeat than we mastered Mexico, and we should not call ourselves the conquerors of New Spain, but the conquered of Hernando Cortes"; "A general's share does not satisfy him, but he must have a king's share, not counting the profits"; "How sad is my heart till Cortes gives back the gold he has hidden"; "Diego Velasquez spent his fortune to discover the north coast, and Cortes came and took the gain." There were others I can not repeat.
When of a morning he came from his quarters, Cortes did not pass these epigrams without reading them, and as the greater part were in handsomely turned verse, each sentence, it is evident from the homely versions given above, with a pointed meaning and reproof, and since our captain was a bit of a poet himself, he took it upon himself to write answers praising his deeds. But as days went on, and the couplets became more severe, Cortes wrote, "A blank wall is the paper of fools." Soon after was found added, "and of wise men and truth-tellers." Cortes knew who had written it, and he was angry and ordered that henceforth no one should dare stain the walls with malicious sayings.
Our captain, at last worn with unceasing faultfinding—that he had stolen all for himself—and
