Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/729

Rh A mass of booty and slaves being now at hand, general distribution was ordered, the second in Tezcuco. Again, says Bernal Diaz, Cortés disregarded his promises and secured not only for himself the objectionable fifth, but allowed his favorites to carry off the prettiest women before they were brought forward at auction. Many who remembered the former tricks hid their women and said they had escaped, or they declared them free servants from allied tribes; while a few managed to obtain a private branding, paying the fifth required. A large proportion of the soldiers were so heavily in debt for stores and fifths that their booty left them no surplus.

While the reconnoitring expeditions had on the whole been fraught with pecuniary benefit and glory, they had nevertheless served to open the eyes of many to the difficulty of the great purpose, the capture of Mexico. This was particularly the case with the Velazquez party, whose adhesion before the Tepeaca campaign had been compulsory, and after it mercenary in its motives. Every obstacle to them appeared terrible, magnified through constant fear of the dreaded stone of sacrifice, on which so many comrades had already been laid. And this they were encountering for what? the advancement of an envied usurper and a pecuniary reward far beneath their expectations. The failure at Iztapalapan, the repeated inroads of the Mexicans, unabashed by constant repulses, and the hardships of the campaigns, particularly the last, all tended to support their arguments against Cortés' plans as chimerical, involving long delays, constant toil, and waste of life, and with poor recompense save for Cortés and his favorites.

Presently the affair assumed the color of conspiracy, headed by Antonio de Villafañe, a common soldier