representations to relinquish the expedition, and return to Mexico. They constantly reminded him of the men to whom he had confided the chief government, and told him that the accountant Albornoz was a man fond of innovation, restless of disposition, and double-faced; that the treasurer openly prided himself on being a son of his catholic majesty; so that very little trust could be placed in either of these gentlemen. From the moment he had intrusted the government to them, and even previously, they had laid their heads together, and determined upon some secret movement. They likewise reminded Cortes of the letters he had received on his march hither, from Mexico, in which it was stated that his two representatives had already began to slander his government of the country. In short, the veedor and factor spoke in such eloquent and flattering terms of their great attachment to his person, and how much more fitting persons they were themselves to have been intrusted with the government in his absence than the two other gentlemen, that at last they actually persuaded him to grant them equal power in the administration; and not only this, but with the additional authority to take the sole government into their own hands, if they saw that Albornoz and Estrada acted against the true interests of his majesty.
The power which Cortes thus conferred upon the veedor and factor was the source of many evils, and of the terrible insurrection which shortly after burst out in Mexico, and of which I will give a full account in a following chapter, when our army has fairly reached the town of Truxillo, after a long and tedious march. I will only take this opportunity of observing, that father Olmedo, and the Franciscan monks who accompanied us, did not hesitate a moment to tell Cortes how greatly they disapproved of this measure, and said, they hoped to God he would not have to repent of this step: and indeed their apprehensions were but too well confirmed by future events! Cortes, however, took little heed of what the good Franciscans had said; for only the words of father Olmedo, whom he consulted on most occasions, had ever any weight with him.