bringing any accusations against him for so much ill-treatment. The factor at the same time issued orders for the apprehension of the greater part of the soldiers and inhabitants of Mexico who had remained true to Cortes. These persons, seeing the storm that was brooding over them, retired with Jorge de Alvarado and Andreas de Tapia into the cloister of the Franciscans, as their party was too weak to bid defiance to the factor, and most of the veteran Conquistadores were with Cortes in the Honduras, and a great number had closely allied themselves to the factor, who had gained them over to his side by bestowing lucrative commendaries on them. But as the factor still feared the inhabitants of Mexico might each moment rise up in arms against him, and a desperate conflict ensue, he ordered all the arms to be taken out of the arsenal, and had them brought into his palace, in front of which he mounted all the cannon of the fortress, and those which served for the protection of the harbour. The chief command of this park of artillery he gave to Don Luis de Guzman, a relative of the duke of Medina Sidonia. In the same way he formed a body guard, in which were found the names of Gines Nortes, Pedro Gonsalez Sabiote, and others of Cortes' soldiers. A certain Artiaga he appointed captain of this guard.
Zuazo advised our general to use the utmost circumspection, in case he should repair in person to New Spain, as other things had happened even of a worse nature; for instance, the factor had written to acquaint his majesty that a stamp had been found in Cortes' bureau, with which he was accustomed to mark the gold that was secretly brought to him by the Indians, thereby to avoid paying the royal fifth.
In order that Cortes might form some notion as to how matters stood in Mexico, he (Zuazo) would give him the following instance: One of the Spanish inhabitants of Guacasualco had come to Mexico, to apply for some property, which had become vacant by the death of one of the settlers there. In Mexico he happened to lodge with a Spanish woman, who had married a second time, on the supposition that her former