cavaliers who had accompanied him on this expedition. With the
assistance of God, they concluded, the expedition against Algiers might
be renewed on some future occasion: and thus it was resolved the troops
should return to Spain.

After the miserable termination of this perilous expedition, Cortes grew
wearied of any longer stay at court; and as old age was growing upon
him, and he was beginning to feel the effects of the many hardships and
fatigues he had endured through life, his greatest desire was to obtain
permission from the emperor to return to New Spain. To all this may be
added, the breaking off of the marriage which was to have taken place
between his daughter Dona Maria and Don Alvaro Perez Osorio, heir to the
marquisate of Astorga, to whom Cortes had promised, as a marriage gift,
above 100,000 golden ducats, besides other valuable matters. Dona Maria
had expressly arrived in Seville from Mexico, at her father's desire,
that the marriage might be consummated, and he was consequently much
hurt and annoyed when the match was broken off. The fault, it appears,
lay with the bridegroom; and certain it is this matter caused so much
annoyance to Cortes that it brought on a severe fever, accompanied by
dysentery. Finding that his sickness was growing upon him, he left the
town of Seville, and retired to Castilleja de la Cuesta to enjoy more
repose. Here he ordered all his affairs, made his last will, and was
called away from this world of troubles on the 2d of September, 1547,
after receiving the holy sacrament and extreme unction. He was buried
with every pomp and magnificence in the chapel containing the sepultures
of the dukes of Medina Sidonia, and he was followed to the grave by a
large body of the clergy and a number of cavaliers. Subsequently his
remains were taken to New Spain, and interred, according to a desire
expressed in his last will, either in Cojohuacan or Tezcuco,[55] I
forget which.

The following is what I know respecting Cortes' age. When we first set
out with him for New Spain from Cuba, in the year 1519, we often heard
him say in the course of conversation, that he was thirty-four years of
age, and from this day until the day of his death twenty-eight years had
elapsed, which will bring his age to sixty-two.[56]

The following were the children he left behind him born in lawful
wedlock: the present marquis Don Martin; Dona Maria, who was to have
been married to Don Perez Osorio, but who aft