Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/80

60 May of that same year, which after some fruitless cruising about, returned to Acapulco, the whole venture having cost Cortes some two hundred thousand ducats (Noticia Historica. Lorenzana Cartas de Cortes, edition 1776). A royal cedula, dated April 1, 1539 from Saragossa, provided for the payment of this claim, but remained ineffective (Alaman, Dissertazioni. V. Italian translation 1859).

Thus the only results obtained from these various undertakings were debts, and he complained that he had so many that he was obliged to raise money, even on his wife's jewels. He wrote in despair to the Emperor that it was easier to fight the Indians than to contend with His Majesty's officials, and after years of litigation, during which the royal authorities seemed to study how best to vex and circumvent him, and after the series of useless but costly expeditions in the Pacific, he started on his second journey to Spain, which was to be his last.

A very different reception from the former one awaited him, for the Emperor was coldly civil, and the Court in consequence was colder. His constant complaints and demands for satisfaction fell upon deaf or weary ears, for Court favours usually reckon more with present than with past services, and there was nothing more to be obtained from Cortes, who was broken in health and no longer young. At this time, too, Spain was all aflame with excitement over the brilliant achievements of Pizarro in Peru, which eclipsed the familiar exploits in Mexico, now grown stale.

He joined the unsuccessful expedition sent against Algiers in 1541, in which the ship on which he and his sons Martin and Luis sailed was wrecked, together with eleven galleys of Andrea Doria. They barely escaped with their lives, and the five famous emeralds, which constituted an important item in his fortune, and which he always carried on his person, were lost.