Warned by Láres and Duero of every plot, Cortés hurried preparations, sending friends to forage, and shipping stores with the utmost despatch, meanwhile giving secret orders for all to be ready to embark at a moment's notice. Finally, the hour having come, on the evening of the 17th of November, with a few trusty adherents, Cortés presented himself before the governor, and politely took his leave. It fell suddenly on Velazquez, in whose eyes all movements relating to the expedition had of late become the manœeuvres of men conspired to overreach him. But having neither the excuse nor the ability to stop the expedition he let the officers depart.
By playing with the devil one soon learns to play the devil. From the governor's house Cortés hastened to the public meat depository, seized and added to his stores the town's next week's supply, and left the keeper, Fernando Alfonso, a gold chain, all he had remaining wherewith to make payment.[1] It was a dull, dry, gray November morning, the 18th, very early, after mass had been said, when the squadron, consisting of six vessels, sailed out of Santiago harbor amidst the vivas of the populace and the inward cursings of the governor.[2] But of little avail was Velazquez' remorse; for Cortés carried
- ↑ In his memorial to the emperor in 1542, Cortés relates this enforced transaction quite at length. Learning that his stock of the week had been seized, Hernan Dalonso seeks Cortés and complains, with tears in his eyes, whereupon he receives the gold chain, 'de unos abrojos.' Cortés, Escritos Sueltos, 310-11; Col. Doc. Inéd., iv. 221.
- ↑ Bernal Diaz asserts that Duero and Láres were present at the parting, and that Velazquez and Cortés several times embraced cach other and vowed eternal friendlship. 'Habuit Cortesius cùm e Sancti Jacobi urbe et portu solvit, naves sex; aliâ, nam septem habuit, in portu, ut sarciretur reficereturque, relictà.' De Rebus Gestis Ferdinandi Cortesii, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., i. 348. This authority believes that one of the reasons for Cortés' hurried departure was a fear that Grijalva's vessels might turn up; but they had already arrived, as we have seen. The seventh vessel, a caravel, joined Cortés at Trinidad, with nine horses and eighty volunteers, under Francisco de Salcedo. Id., 354. 'Partio se de Santiago Barucoa. . . . en seys nauios.' Gomara, Hist. Mex., 13.
wrote only what he was told by his master. He scouts the idea of the powerful Velazquez either needing Cortés' pecuniary aid or not being able to dispose of his fleet as he wished. A humble squire, indeed, to raise his voice against the great Velazquez, who could have taken his bread and life at any moment! Hist. Ind., iv. 448-9.
