Marcos de Aguilar dies, and in his will appoints the treasurer Alonso de Estrada governor; and of other matters.
I have already stated, in the former chapter, that Marcos de Aguilar was in a miserable state of ill health, yet the physicians contrived to keep him alive for the space of eight months by means of goats' milk and other nourishing food; but, in addition to his other diseases, he was at length attacked by a malignant fever, which soon put an end to all his miseries. By his will he appointed Alonso de Estrada his sole successor in the government, with the same restrictions as he himself had received from Ponce de Leon.
The inhabitants of Mexico, however, and particularly those Spaniards who had settled in the provinces, placed not the slightest confidence in Estrada's capability of governing, as he did not evince sufficient energy to offer any resistance to the tyrannical conduct of Nuño de Guzman, who, a couple of years previously, had arrived from Spain with the appointment of governor of Panuco. This man, without any ceremony, added whole districts from the territory of Mexico to his province; he paid not the least attention to the instructions he had received from the emperor, and altogether behaved like a furious madman. Among other things, he hung a nobleman of distinction named Pedro Gonzales de Truxillo, who had settled in Mexico, without any form or trial, merely because he had declared that his commendary was not subject to his government but to that of Mexico, as his possessions were not comprehended in the province of Panuco. In like manner he had the audacity to serve several other Spaniards, and he paid not the slightest attention to the remonstrances of the governor Estrada.