CHAPTER I. 1511 TO 1519.

At Trinidad, Cortéz was overtaken by orders for detention from his former friend and patron. These commands, however, were not enforced by the cautious official who received them; and Cortéz, forthwith, despatched Alvarado, by land, to Havana, whilst he prepared to follow with his fleet around the coast and western part of the island. At Havana he again added to his forces,—prepared arms and quilted armor as a defence against the Indian arrows,—and distributed his men into eleven companies under the command of experienced officers. But, before all his arrangements were completed, the commander of the place, Don Pedro Barba, was ordered, by express from Velasquez, to arrest Cortéz, whilst the Captain General of the Armada himself received a hypocritical letter from the same personage, "requesting him to delay his voyage till the governor could communicate with him in person!" Barba, however, knew that the attempt to seize the leader of such an enterprise and of such a band, would be vain;—whilst Cortéz, in reply to Velasquez, "implored his Excellency to rely on his boundless devotion to the interests of