Velazquez had meanwhile been taking testimony against Cortés, and had sent treasurer Guzman to Spain with documents and instructions to join Martin in pressing his suit before the bishop.30
Charles V. had been elected emperor, and was busy in Spain raising supplies and making preparations on a vast scale for presenting an appearance in Germany befitting so high a dignity. Previous to embarking for Flanders he was to meet the cortes at Compostela. The messengers from New Spain could afford to lose no more time, and so with the aid of Puertocarrero’s friends and the men opposed to Fonseca, among them the Licenciado Nuñez, relator of the royal council and related to Cortés, they slipped away, and in company with Alaminos and Martin Cortés, managed to be presented to the monarch at
Tordesillas, in the beginning of March.31 The king was not a little pleased with the reports, gilded as they were with the richest presents that had as yet reached him from his American possessions,32 but he was unfortunately too absorbed with the imperial crown and the preparations for departure to give more than a passing attention to the subject, and still less would he enter into the merits of the claims presented. Finding, however, that Fonseca had not been impartial in the matter, he was prevailed on to refer it to Cardinal Adrian, and the junta of prelates and ministers governing the kingdom during the royal absence, before whom the Council of the Indies had also to lay its reports. The messengers were meanwhile allowed under bond to receive from the seized funds what was needed for their support.33 The powerful Fonseca managed, however, by misrepresentation and other means, to delay the case, and for about two years it dragged its weary length. And yet, where a man is strong enough to carve out his own fortune, particularly where the administration of strict justice might send his neck to the halter, the law’s delay and its susceptibility to perversion may be most fortunate.