stock of breast plates, muskets, cross-bows, and other arms, I sincerely regretted that my despatches never reached Your Majesty, which was of the greatest consequence to me as I shall hereafter show.
The other ship, bound for Jamaica, and the one going to Espanola arrived at Trinidad in Cuba, where they found the licenciate Alonzo de Zuazo whom I
Cortes
Receives
News from
Mexico
had left as chief justice, and partly in the government of this New Spain during my absence; and they also found in that port a vessel which those licenciates living in Española were on the point of despatching to New Spain to ascertain if the report spread of my death which was spread there, was correct.[1] When the people of the ship learned news of me, they changed their course, because they were bringing thirty-two horses and some saddles for riding in the Moorish style, besides a certain quantity of provisions which they believed they could sell best wherever I was. By this ship, the said licenciate, Alonzo de Zuazo, wrote to me about the great scandals and commotions which had arisen among Your Majesty's officers in New Spain, who had spread the report of my death, and two of whom had proclaimed themselves by public crier as Governors, obliging the people to swear and recognise them as such. They had imprisoned the said licenciate, Alonzo de Zuazo, and two other officers, as
- ↑ The report of Cortes's death was so persistently spread, and with such details of the time and place of his decease, that his own friends and servants began to believe it. Diego de Ordaz started with four brigantines on the Xicalango River, which empties into the gulf, to ascertain, if possible, the truth of the rumours; he met several Indian traders, who assured him that Cortes had been dead for seven or eight moons, having been captured after a battle in which he was wounded in the throat by the Cacique of Cuzamilco, a town on a lake seven days distant from Xicalango; and that the Cacique had sacrificed him to the principal deity of the place, called Uchilobos. (Letter of Albornoz to Charles V., December 26, 1526, apud Muñoz, tom, lxxvii., fol. clxix).
