Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/60

 

How Diego Velasquez petitioned the king of Spain to grant him commission to conquer settle and apportion the land; and we came again with a new fleet with Cortes as captain.

I begin to tell of Cortes and our expedition of which he was the commander, I must relate certain happenings which can not be omitted, for they bore on later events.

After Alvarado had arrived at Santiago with the gold we had gained in the newly discovered lands, Diego Velasquez began to fear that, before he could make his report to the king, some court favorite, getting private news of our discoveries, might rob him of his reward. For this reason he sent to Spain a chaplain of his, Benito Martinez, a man skilled in business, to bear letters and a great portion of the gold trinkets to Juan Rodriguez, bishop of Burgos and archbishop of Rosano; and also to the licentiate Luis Zapata and the secretary Lope de Conchillos, who at that time had charge of Indian affairs under the archbishop. Our governor of Cuba, Diego Velasquez, was quite devoted to these men and had given them sizable Indian villages, with the people