destruction. He therefore returned to New Spain, and wrote word to the factor, without going on shore, that there was now no doubt of Cortes having perished, with all who accompanied him on the expedition. After despatching this letter to Mexico, he immediately set sail for Cuba, in order to purchase cows and horses there.
The factor, on receiving this intelligence from de Ordas, made it known to every one, and subsequently the whole of Cortes' old soldiers and friends put on mourning, and even a tomb was erected to his memory in the chief church of Mexico. The factor then, under sound of trumpet and drum, had himself proclaimed governor and captain-general of New Spain. His next step was, to order the wives of those who were supposed to have perished with Cortes to pray for their late husbands' souls, and to form new marriages, all of which was likewise made known in Guacasualco and other townships. He even went so far as to order the wife of a certain Alonso Valiente to be publicly scourged for a witch through the streets of Mexico, for having declared her determination not to marry again, as she was sure that Cortes and the whole of us were still alive, and that we should shortly make our appearance, for we, the veteran Conquistadores, said she, were a very different kind of soldiers to those who marched out under the veedor to Coatlan, against whom the Indians made war, not they against the Indians. The veedor was soon surrounded by a vile set of flatterers, who supported him in all his measures; and one Spaniard, whom we had always considered to be a man of honour, but whose name I will refrain from mentioning, had the shamelessness to assure the factor, in presence of several persons, that as he was one night passing over the Tlatelulco, near the church of Santiago, where the great temple of Huitzilopochtli once stood, he had seen the souls of Cortes, Doña Marina, and Sandoval burning in livid flames in a courtyard near this church. This had frightened him to such a degree, he added, that he fell ill in consequence.
There was also another Spaniard, whose name I will suppress, because we had always greatly esteemed him, who related a similar circumstance,