Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/79

Rh again, while the other reached Jalisco after many perils. The misfortunes of this expedition began with a mutiny.

Two years later (1534) he built two more vessels at Tehuantepec, which he entrusted to Hernando Grijalba, and Diego de Bezerra de Mendoza (a relative) respectively, with Ortun Jimenez as pilot. The ships got separated the first night out and never saw one another again. The one commanded by Grijalba discovered a deserted island called Santo Tomé, somewhere off the point of Lower California, and returned thence to Tehuantepec; the fate of the other was tragical, for Bezerra was murdered in his sleep by the pilot Jimenez, who took command, and, after coasting along Jalisco, landed at the Bay of Santa Cruz, where he, with twenty Spaniards, was killed by the natives. The remaining sailors got back to the port of Chiametla, where Nunez de Guzman, who was then in Jalisco, took possession of the vessel.

These two fruitless ventures decided Cortes to take command himself, and in 1536 he sent three ships from Tehuantepec to the port of Chiametla where he joined them, marching overland from Mexico. He regained possession of the ship which Guzman had seized from the sailors of Jimenez, refitted it, and set out on his voyage, exploring the coast for some fifty leagues beyond Santa Cruz (or La Paz), during which trip he suffered innumerable hardships, and lost many of his men from sickness. The news of his own death reached Mexico, and his wife sent two ships and a caravel to look for him and bring him back. His wife's letters, together with others from the royal audiencia and the Viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza, urging his return as very necessary, decided Cortes to abandon further explorations, and after leaving Francisco de Ulloa in California, he returned to Acapulco in the early part of 1537.

He sent three ships, the Santa Agneda, La Trinidad, and the Santo Tomas, back to Francisco de Ulloa in