How Cortes sends a present to his majesty; 80,000 pesos in gold and silver, besides a magnificent field-piece made of silver and gold, covered with various beautiful figures; also how he sends his father Martin Cortes above 5000 pesos.
Cortes had by this time collected about 80,000 pesos, and now also the field-piece was finished, which received the name of Phœnix, and was in every way a present worthy of the acceptance of so renowned a sovereign as our great emperor. This beautiful cannon was cast of silver, and bore the following inscription:
No bird like this was ever born,
As a servant I have no second,
And you have not your equal in the world.
Cortes therefore determined to forward all this treasure to his majesty in Spain, and commissioned a nobleman of Toledo, named Diego de Soto to be the bearer: whether Juan de Ribera, who squinted with one eye, and had been Cortes' private secretary, accompanied this gentleman, I cannot exactly remember; but one thing I know, that very little reliance could be placed in his honesty. I also imagined that he played falsely at cards and cheated at dice; besides which he possessed many other bad qualities. I merely mention all this because he behaved so villanously to Cortes in Spain, for he not only kept back the money which the latter confided to his care for his father Martin Cortes,43 but he repaid kindness with ingratitude, and so far forgot all the favours which Cortes had bestowed upon him, that, instead of speaking good of our general, or even the truth, he calumniated his benefactor in every possible manner.