t considered of so much importance
as at the present day.

After every arrangement respecting the government of the country had
been settled between Sandoval and Estrada, the latter was advised by his
friends to despatch a vessel forthwith to Spain to forward his majesty
an account of everything that had taken place, and to draw up this
account in such a manner as if he had only taken Sandoval as a
colleague in order to avoid giving Cortes a share of the government.

Cortes' enemies also profited by this opportunity to despatch their
letters to Spain, in which they calumniated our general in the foulest
manner; they stated right out that he had poisoned Garay, Leon, and
Aguilar, and that it was his intention to put the veedor and factor to
death; the whole of which, however, were most barefaced and scandalous
lies. To all this was added, that about the same time the accountant
Albornoz, who was never well inclined towards Cortes, went to Spain to
injure him in every possible manner. After his majesty and the council
of the Indies had read all the letters and despatches, which seemed to
vie with each other in their complaints against Cortes, and were
moreover confirmed by Albornoz, all the former accusations respecting
his treatment of Narvaez, Tapia, and his conduct towards his first wife,
Dona Catalina Suarez la Marcaida, were harrowed up again, and actually
gained credit in all their distortion. The emperor, therefore, came to
the determination to appoint Estrada sole governor of New Spain; he
confirmed all his previous acts and deeds, gave him power to distribute
the commendaries according to the best of his judgment, and ordered that
the factor and veedor should again be set at liberty and reinstated in
all their former possessions.

A vessel was immediately despatched from Spain with these his majesty's
commands, which soon arrived in Mexico; but this was not all, for his
majesty also ordered the comendador-mayor of the order of Alcantara, Don
Pedro de la Cueva, to equip three hundred soldiers at Cortes' expense,
to repair with these to New Spain, there to make inquiries into the
complaints which had been made against Cortes, with full power, if he
should find them founded in truth, to cut off his head. In the same way
the comendador was to punish all those who had acted against the real
interests of the crown; he was to take away all the townships in
possession of Cortes, and to distribute them among the veteran