CHAPTER XXIII.
DEATH OF CORTÉS.
1540-1547.
Departure of Cortes for Spain — His Arrival and Reception — Hollow Show — Vain Hopes — He Joins the Expedition to Algiers — And Suffers Shipwreck — Loss of the Famous Emeralds — He is Slighted at a Council of War — Return to Madrid — A Fruitless Petition — More Indignities — Last Touching Appeal — Determination to Return to Mexico — Last Illness and Death of the Conqueror — Disposition of the Remains — His Last Will — The Estate — The Descendants of Cortés — Résumé of his Character.
We have seen as the settled policy of Spain that the greatest discoverers and conquerors must not be allowed permanent or hereditary rule. The viler sort, like Pedrarias and Velazquez, were the safer instruments of royalty; while the claims of the noble and chivalrous, Columbus, Balboa, and Cortés, whose services were too great for convenient recompense, it was usually found easier to repudiate. It is true they asked much, for they had given much; they asked long and persistently, for the sovereign promised with little thought of performing; in due time it was the king's pleasure not to know them.
The viceroy Mendoza was not naturally a bad man. He was only carrying out the policy of his master Charles when he so irritated and persecuted Cortés as to drive him from Mexico in 1540. It was in January of that year that he embarked for Spain, accompanied by his son Martin, then eight years of age, by the chronicler Bernal Diaz, and a retinue of nobles and partisans. On his arrival he learned that the
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