called the life and soul of the factor, shared
a similar fate. Criminal suits, as they are termed, were certainly
instituted against these personages, and Cortes might have inflicted due
punishment upon them without any further ceremony, and his just
retribution would have met with every approbation in Spain; but he
neglected to do so, though his majesty himself had fully expected he
would have adopted such a course. This I can assure the reader to be a
fact, for I was told it by the members of the council of the Indies
themselves, when I was in Spain in the year 1540 on account of some
lawsuits which were pending between myself and others. The bishop
Bartolome de las Casas was present at the time. It was the opinion of
all that Cortes had been remarkably negligent in this matter, and that
he had shown very little of his wonted spirit on the occasion.

CHAPTER CXCI.

_How the licentiate Luis Ponce de Leon, who was commissioned to make
inquiries into Cortes' government of New Spain, arrives in the
harbour of San Juan de Ulua._

I have already mentioned in a former chapter that the emperor, during
his stay at Toledo, had commissioned Luis Ponce de Leon to repair to
Mexico, and there to institute a formal inquiry against Cortes; and if
he found him guilty, to punish him so severely, that the whole world
might know it. He had been previously furnished with all the particulars
of the several accusations which had been brought against Cortes.

It was not for a length of time that this man received the necessary
despatches, which had greatly retarded his departure. At length,
however, he arrived, after a favorable passage, with three or four
vessels, in the harbour of San Juan de Ulua, where he immediately
landed, and repaired to the town of Medellin. As he made no secret of
the purport of his arrival, one of the officers of Cortes' household
immediately sent his master intelligence of the nature of this
gentleman's visit, so that Cortes was apprized of it four days after
Leon's arrival. When our general received these letters from Villalobos,
the officer above mentioned, he happened to be in the Franciscan
cloister, making the holy communion, and humbly supplicating the
Almighty to bless his endeavours. This news was the more disagreeable to
him, as Ponce de Leon seemed to hasten his journey to Mexico in such a
manner as if he did not wish to allow him time to make the necessary
arrangements for his r