Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/99

Rh in the annals of the colony and of Spain, but in 1568, he was cruelly treated in the capital which had been won by the valor and fidelity of his parents.

From this digression in his Mexican career, Cortéz was suddenly recalled by the news of disturbances in the capital, which he reached after a tempestuous and dangerous voyage. His journey from the coast to the valley was a continued scene of triumphs; and, from Tezcoco, in June, 1526, he made his stately entrance into the city of Mexico amid brilliant cavalcades, decorated streets, and lakes and canals covered with the fanciful skiffs of Indians.

A month later, the joy of his rapturous reception was disturbed by the announcement that the Spanish Court had sent a commissioner to supercede him temporarily in the government. The work of sapping his power and influence had long been carried on at home; and false reports, involving Cortéz in extreme dishonesty not only to the subjects but to the crown of Spain itself, at length infused suspicions into the sovereign's mind. The Emperor resolved to search the matter fairly to its core, and, accordingly, despatched Don Luis Ponce de Leon, a young, but able nobleman to perform this delicate task, at the same time that he wrote with his own hand to the conqueror, assuring him that his sole design was not to distrust or deprive him of his honors, but to afford him the opportunity of placing his integrity in a clear light before the world.

De Leon, and the delegate chosen on his death bed, died within a few months, and were succeeded by Estrada, the royal treasurer, who was hostile to Cortéz, and whose malicious mismanagement of the investigation soon convinced even the Spanish court that it was unjust to leave so delicate and tangled a question in his hands. Accordingly the affair was transferred from Estrada to a commission styled the Audiencia Real de España, and Cortéz was commanded to hasten across the Atlantic in order to vindicate himself from the aspersions before this august body, which sat in the midst of his countrymen.

Cortéz resolved to go at once; and, loyal to the last, rejected all the offers that were made him to reassume the reins of power, independently of Spain. He carried with him a number of natives, together with specimens of all the natural and artificial products of his viceroyalty; nor did he forget a plentiful supply of gold, silver, and jewels, with which he might maintain, in the eyes of his luxurious countrymen, the state that was appropriate for one whose