Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/439

Rh some portion of his grant, adhered to his claims and defended his rights as tenaciously as the audiencia assailed them, filing protests and making appeals to the crown whenever loss was threatened.

Again, in 1537 and 1538, under the administration of Viceroy Mendoza, an attempt was made to bring affairs to a satisfactory adjustment. Again the marquis in a letter to the India Council, dated 20th of September 1538, enters at length into the troubles and expenses attending the count, and having been deprived of many townships, impoverished by the heavy expenses of unremunerative expeditions, in reduced circumstances, and oppressed with debt, he asks relief in order that he may live. Poor conqueror!

But it is time to consider the efforts made by Cortés to extend discoveries in the South Sea, and mark how his exertions were cramped and his prospects of success marred by the same watchful opponents.

The reader is already aware that previous to his departure to Spain, Cortés had despatched a fleet to the Moluccas, and that the commerce he wished to establish there might be permanent, he began the construction of other vessels at Tehuantepec with the intention of sending them to support the first expedition. Four vessels were already built when he left