some portion of his grant, adhered to his claims and defended his rights as tenaciously as the audiencia assailed them, filing protests and making appeals to the crown whenever loss was threatened.[1]
Again, in 1537 and 1538, under the administration of Viceroy Mendoza, an attempt was made to bring affairs to a satisfactory adjustment.[2] Again the marquis in a letter to the India Council, dated 20th of September 1538, enters at length into the troubles and expenses attending the count, and having been deprived of many townships, impoverished by the heavy expenses of unremunerative expeditions, in reduced circumstances, and oppressed with debt, he asks relief in order that he may live. Poor conqueror![3]
But it is time to consider the efforts made by Cortés to extend discoveries in the South Sea, and mark how his exertions were cramped and his prospects of success marred by the same watchful opponents.
The reader is already aware that previous to his departure to Spain, Cortés had despatched a fleet to the Moluccas, and that the commerce he wished to establish there might be permanent, he began the construction of other vessels at Tehuantepec with the intention of sending them to support the first expedition. Four vessels were already built when he left
- ↑ Cortés, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xii. 541-9, 554-63. On account of the enmity displayed by the audiencia he petitioned the king to send a special commissioner to make the count and deliver him his vassals, or to empower a commission of prelates and friars in New Spain to do so, otherwise a settlement would never be accomplished. Id., xiii. 24-5.
- ↑ Viceroy Mendoza and Vasco de Quiroga, bishop elect of Michoacan, were empowered, November 30, 1537, to count the vassals. Id., xii. 314-18.
- ↑ Cortés, in Carta, Col. Doc. Inéd., iv. 194-201. His expenses in fitting out armaments had been enormous, besides other calls upon his purse, which was ever an open one. He thus describes his straitened circumstances: 'Con las ayudas de costa que dese Real Consejo se me han hecho . . . yo tengo harto que hacer in mantenerme en un aldea, donde tengo mi muger, sin osar residir en esta cibdad ni venir á ella, por no tener que comer en ella.' And he entreats the council, 'dar . . . órden como en mis dias tenga de comer y despues dellos se conozca en mis hijos que su padre meresció algo.' Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., iii. 589. But no final settlement of his claims was made in his lifetime, and it was only after his death that the latter wish obtained recognition, when the original grant was confirmed to his son, with a slight reservation and without limitation as to the number of vassals, by Philip II.
