THE ROMANCE OF MEXICO
surprise and dismay, with but a cold reception. Bitter was his disappointment to find that another was to command the armament already equipped to open out the alluring land he had himself discovered. His services were calmly ignored, and he was reproached, most unjustly, for not having attempted more.
No conquest, indeed, had Grijalva made, no settlement effected, yet to him must ever belong the honour of being the first European to set foot on the soil of Mexico. Misguided was Velasquez to set aside so honest and faithful an envoy. Blind he was to choose as his new commander a man bold and resourceful, but possessed with an overweening ambition—Hernando Cortés! The longed-for chance had come!
Velasquez aimed at the impossible. He sought to make, by deputy, a great conquest, and yet to keep all the glory to himself. To secure this end he had chosen for his captain-general a man, as yet undistinguished, of no rank, and quite without political influence in the home-country. Cortés, he fondly hoped, would prove a useful tool and no rival, for did he not owe his present prosperous position entirely to the Governor's favour? He was, moreover, a man of enterprise and resolution, well fitted to lead an expedition.
On the twenty-third of October 1518, a few days before Grijalva's return, Cortés formally received his commission. He was solemnly charged to treat the natives with humanity, and to make their conversion his chief object. He was to inform them of the
