Cortes and the officers of the crown forward to Spain the
wardrobe of Motecusuma, and the emperor's share of the booty; and
what further happened._

After this campaign in the province of Panuco, Cortes was busily
occupied with the rebuilding of the city of Mexico.

Alonso de Avila, who had been despatched to the island of St. Domingo to
communicate there in Cortes' name with the royal court of audience and
the Hieronymite brotherhood, had by this time returned to Mexico, and
had obtained for Cortes the necessary powers from the above courts to
subdue the whole of New Spain, turn the inhabitants into slaves, mark
them with a red-hot iron, and distribute the Indians into commendaries
in the same manner as was customary at Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica.
This power granted to Cortes was to remain in force until the emperor's
pleasure was known on this head. The Hieronymite brotherhood duly
apprized his majesty of all this, and despatched a vessel for that
purpose to Spain; and though the young emperor was at that time still in
Flanders, their despatches arrived safely in his hands. As the
Hieronymite brotherhood were well aware of the bad feeling which the
bishop of Burgos always had evinced towards us, they purposely omitted
to acquaint him with the nature of these despatches; and, upon the
whole, they never communicated with him excepting on matters of trifling
import.

Alonso de Avila, as I have before remarked, was a man who feared no one,
and had formerly held some office immediately under the bishop of
Burgos, so that it was fortunate he happened to be absent upon the
mission just mentioned, in St. Domingo, when Christobal de Tapia arrived
at Vera Cruz with the appointment of governor of New Spain, as the
latter had brought letters from the bishop to him, and on such an
occasion the determined character of Avila might have greatly injured
our general's cause.

Cortes, who was thoroughly acquainted with this man's disposition,
always strove to keep him at a distance from his person; and now again,
upon the advice of father Olmedo, he presented him with the lucrative
township of Quauhtitlan, which would give him constant occupation; and
Cortes added to this a considerable sum of money, by which he gained him
so completely over to his side, that he soon after intrusted him with a
most important mission, by despatching him and Quinones, the captain of
the guards, to Spain, as his own procuradores, and thos