Aware of the machinations of the officials, having learned much in his relation with the Velazquez party, Cortés takes pains in his fourth letter to the king to point out many things that may explain charges, yet he cannot peer into those cipher despatches and counteract all. To promote the subjugation of the country he has expended all his funds, over one hundred thousand pesos de oro, and has been obliged to take a sum from the treasury, though this would be recovered a hundred-fold after securing such provinces; he has also borrowed thirty thousand pesos wherewith to buy in Spain arms, implements, plants, and other needful material for the colony. He asks that the royal officials be ordered to recognize these expenditures and repay his outlay, or he would be unable to settle his debts.
In a special letter of the same date, 15th of October 1524, he thanks the sovereign for ignoring the calumnies of his enemies and favoring him as he had done. He submits a number of proposals for benefiting the country and the natives, particularly the introduction of more friars to educate and pacify the natives, and he urges that the royal officials be told not to meddle with his affairs. This he supplements by letters to his friends and agents, relating how Albornoz, for instance, has become implacable because he does not receive all the encomiendas and noble maidens he desires.[1]
With his usual prudence he resolved to strengthen his observations with such glittering tokens as he could gather, including a quantity of silver from Michoacan, some pearls, and gold-work, besides feathers, skins, and fabrics, and a revenue remittance of seventy thousand pesos de oro. These presents, he observes, were far inferior to those sent before, but their capture by the French made him desirous of tendering some compensation. The object of Cortés
- ↑ All these letters went in duplicates so that if the bishop of Búrgos seized one set, the other might reach its destination. Ib.
