been told that they belonged to Francisco de Garay,[1] Lieutenant, and Governor of the Island of Jamaica, and had come to make discoveries. My captain had told them, that I had already settled the country in the name of Your Highness, and had laid out a town about a league from where the said ships were, where they could go and make their arrival known to me, and there make any repairs they might need. He said he would conduct them in his barque to the port, pointing out to them where it was. They had answered him, that they had already seen the port, having passed in front of it, and that they would do as he said, so he had returned with the barque, but the ships had not followed him nor come to the port. They had still sailed along the coast, and, as they had not entered the port, he did not know what object
- ↑ Francisco de Garay sailed with Columbus on his second voyage. Las Casas speaks of his great wealth, and says that he had five thousand Indians solely to look after his pigs. He went to Spain as procurator for San Domingo, and returned as Lieut-Governor of Jamaica. When the news of the Cordoba and Grijalba expeditions became the excitement of the day, Garay sent out an exploring party under command of Diego de Camargo. This discovered the Panuco region, and, continuing thence about one hundred leagues towards Florida, finally returned to Jamaica. The Emperor Charles V. granted him faculties for further enterprises, and the title of adelantado of the new countries he discovered. Garay was one of the most cruel oppressors of the Indians and it was said of him that he came, not to populate, but to depopulate, Jamaica. This expedition, of which Cortes writes, was composed of four ships carrying two hundred and seventy men, with horses and cannon, and had sailed from Jamaica towards the close of 1518, under command of Alonzo Alvarez de Piñeda.
Clavigero believes that Cortes induced some of the pilots to scuttle one or two of the ships, and to then come to him representing the others as unseaworthy from being three months in port.
Señor Orozco y Berra is doubtless right in believing that the idea of destroying the ships originated with Cortes, who adroitly suggested it in such wise, and with such arguments, that it came back to him as a spontaneous proposal from the others, prompted, or at least supported by the opinions of the pilots and ship-captains that the vessels were unsound. Such artifice was not alien to his diplomacy, for he usually contrived that he should appear to interpret the popular will as well as to serve the royal interests in all his undertakings.
