liant conversational power; but when he dismissed him, he changed his tone, and bade him depart with his followers within four hours, under penalty of a traitor's doom.[1] The threat lent wings to Castilla, and he hastened crestfallen to report his failure to the captain-general. "It appears that the Castillas in New Spain are better fitted to govern in peace," caustically observed Cortés as he turned his back upon him.[2]
This was the governor's last triumph; from this time his prosperity waned. His friends and supporters one by one left him, some of them estranged by his arbitrary misrule, others because the star of his foe seemed in the ascendant. The refusal of the king to confirm Guzman's license to enslave the natives thinned the settlers' ranks; the governor's severe punishment of certain persons who disobeyed the law — a tardy attempt to conciliate a powerful element among his foes — drove away others; while of the remaining colonists many were drawn away by exciting reports of the gold Discoveries in Perú. The governor had the petty satisfaction on several occasions, as will appear, of refusing water and other aid to the vessels sent out by Cortés, or of plundering those vessels when cast aground on the coast; but so weak did he become finally that he offered no resistance when Cortés marched to Jalisco to recover his vessels.[3]
- ↑ 'Tenia intencion secreta de mandarle cortar la cabeza,' says Beaumont, Crón. Mich., iv. 68. The 4a Rel. Anón., 483, states that Castilla had been captured on the road in company with four or five men.
- ↑ Castilla was ordered to Spain with the documents bearing on the case, there to add to the charges against Guzman, but a gale swept the sea which swallowed the vessel bearing them with all on board. Mota Padilla., Cong. N. Gal., 97; Castilla's death is implied in Cortés, Escritos Sueltos, 193, yet a man of similar name figures some years later in New Galicia. Ramirez and some other writers represent that this expedition of Castilla was subsequent to, and partly In consequence of, Guzman's treatment of Hurtado during his voyage up the coast; but this is erroneous, for Hurtado did not sail until May or June of 1532, while the audiencia reported the whole Castilla affair to the court on April 19, 1532; and their action in the matter was approved by the queen in a letter of October 16th. Puga, Cedulario, 80. Moreover Cortés describes the affair in a letter of April 20, 1532, and says that Guzman from the north, and Castilla from the south, both arrived at Jalisco the same day. Cartas, 512.
- ↑ In Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xii. xiii. and xvi., are a number of
