Gomara, who had been domestic chaplain in Cortes' family, says, that Cortes sent his father on this occasion 25,000 castellanas de oro, and 800 pounds weight of silver, but that it was seized by the emperor. (p. 219.)

According to Gomara, several others had tried their wits to compose a verse for this field-piece, until Cortes himself engaged and hit upon those lines. Andreas de Tapia by way of joke proposed the following:

A questo tiro a mi ver

Muchos necios a de hazer.

The liberties which Cortes granted to all those who built houses in Mexico, drew such vast crowds to the spot, that pestilential diseases broke out, which carried off numbers of human beings. The labourers, while at work, were enlivened by vocal and instrumental music. (p. 221.)