etely subdued the
country, that he might not again sacrifice the lives of his men to no
purpose, and create an insurrection in the country, which would be sure
to ensue if he arrived there beforehand, as the Indians, and
particularly the Mexicans, would immediately conclude that there was no
unanimity in the operations of the Spanish generals; conspiracies would
be formed, and the whole country would rise up into open rebellion.

These and many other things we wrote to his majesty, nor was Cortes' pen
idle on this occasion, for he also sent the emperor an account of every
circumstance in a private despatch, which contained twenty pages, and I
know their contents pretty well, as I read them all through with great
attention. Among other things, he solicited his majesty's permission to
proceed to Cuba in order to take the viceroy Diego Velasquez prisoner,
and send him to Spain, there to stand his trial for having sent persons
to murder him, Cortes, and for having upon the whole endeavoured to
confuse the affairs of New Spain.

With these despatches, the money, and other valuable matters, Quinones
and Avila set sail from Vera Cruz on the 20th of December, 1522, and
safely passed through the straits of Bahama. On their voyage two of the
three tigers broke lose and made their escape, after wounding several
of the crew; it was then determined that the third should be killed,
which was in fact the most ferocious of the three. Without any further
accident they arrived off the island of Tercera, where they dropped
anchor. During their stay on this island, Quinones, who had a vast idea
of his courage and was of a very amorous disposition, got into a quarrel
about some female, and received such a terrible blow on the head that he
died a few days after of the consequences, so that Avila had to transact
all our business himself.

The two vessels then continued their voyage, but had not advanced far
beyond the island of Tercera when they fell in with the redoubted French
corsair Jean Florin, who attacked and took both vessels, carrying Avila
with the crews to France.

About this same time Jean Florin captured another vessel, bound from St.
Domingo, having on board above 20,000 pesos, besides a quantity of
pearls, sugar, and a great number of cow hides. With these valuable
prizes the corsair returned to France a wealthy man, and made the king
and the lord high admiral of France splendid presents out of the things
he had captured; a