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 338 removal Cortez desired, and whose deaths were attended by suspicious circumstances.

[A. D. 1527.] In order to vindicate his actions in the past, and to clear his character from these and other aspersions, Cortez resolved to set sail for Spain and present himself before the king. Although much of his property had been lost to him during his departure on the Honduras expedition, and though he could not obtain from the priests the large sum that had been paid them to say masses, and which had been transferred to another he yet had possessions to a vast amount.

At the same time that judges were appointed to proceed to Mexico and inquire into the charges against Cortez, the first Bishop of Mexico, Juan de Zumárraga, a Franciscan, was nominated with a commission to be "protector of the Indians." With him went forty Dominican friars, and forty Franciscans followed later, with money from the king for the building of a monastery.

Cortez fitted up a ship and sailed for Spain, in a manner befitting the conqueror of New Spain, taking with him a son of Montezuma, one of the chiefs of Tlascala, and several other Indians, as interesting specimens of the people to exhibit to the emperor. Four of these were those jugglers so expert in swinging and in balancing heavy timbers on their feet. He landed at Palos in December, 1527, at which place, shortly after, died his friend, the gallant and noble Sandoval, most trusty captain of the veterans of Mexico.

The presence of Cortez at court allayed all the suspicions of the king, who loaded him with honors. He created him Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, assigning lands and estates of great extent to enable him to maintain his elevated rank, and confirmed him in his title of Captain-General of New Spain and the South Sea. He declined, however, to return