Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/33

Rh for the intervention of his friends who pleaded for him. A memorial presented to the King on behalf of Velasquez by his chaplain Benito Martinez enumerates this, amongst other grievances of the Governor, and fully confirms the statement of Las Casas on this point. Las Casas admits the story of the imprisonment, the escape, and the sanctuary in the church, but he scouts the idea of any such reconciliation as Gomara describes, and says that the Governor, although he pardoned him, would not have him back as secretary, adding, "I saw Cortes in those days so small and humble that he would have craved the notice of the meanest servant of Velasquez." Las Casas reminds his readers that Gomara wrote of things about which he knew only what Cortes and his adherents told him, and at a time when Cortes, who had risen from small beginnings to great rank and fame, was anxious to have his former humble condition forgotten. It should be borne in mind that Las Casas never ceased to regard Cortes as other than an exceptionally bold and lucky adventurer, nor did he ever miss an opportunity of recalling his humble origin and irregular beginnings. The wrath of Velasquez was short lived, for he afterwards made Cortes, alcalde, and stood godfather to one of his children. During the succeeding years the fortunes of Cortes improved, and he amassed a capital of some three thousand castellanos, of which Las Casas remarks "God will have kept a better account than I of the lives it cost." Though married reluctantly, he seems to have been contented, and he described himself to the bishop as just as happy with Catalina as though she were the daughter of a duchess (Las Casas, Hist, de las Indias, lib. iii, cap. xxvii.).

Don Manuel Orozco y Berra unhesitatingly accepts the version of Las Casas, and Prescott inclines also to the opinion that Gomara's account is improbable. Indeed he seeks to prove too much, and his description of the