sword. Native to him were generosity and amiability. The qualities of his heart were noble; the vices were those of his time and station. Yet he lacked the moral fibre which should be interwoven with the good impulses of every rich, sensitive nature, and this want could not be made up by repeating prayers and singing psalms, wherein Gomara describes him as
The pinching economy to which Cortés was reduced made his present frequent visions of the Indies appear only the brighter; and when, in 1504, a fleet of five ships was announced to sail for Española, he determined to delay no longer.
With little else than his father’s blessing he proceeded to Seville, and took passage with Alonso Quintero, master of one of the vessels, who fancied himself shrewder than other men, and shrewder than he was.
Thinking to overreach his brother captains in whose company he sailed, and to secure at Española the first market for his merchandise, he stole forth one night from the Canary Isles, where the squadron had touched for supplies.
A gale dismasted his vessel on reaching the open sea, and sent him back to port. The others agreed to await his repairs, which generosity Quintero repaid by seeking a second time to take advantage of them by going
before, and his treachery was a second time punished by the winds, aided, indeed, by the pilot, who was at enmity with the captain, and who threw the ship from her course during the night so that the reckoning was lost. The usual sufferings are related; and, in answer to prayer, we are told of a miraculous interposition. On Good Friday, when all hope had been abandoned, there was seen poised above the ship a dove, which presently dropped down and rested on the mast.9 However this might have been, we are credibly informed