vernor of Cuba, whose
administration should not be subject even to the balancing and auditing
of accounts which he elsewhere required. But Ferdinand was now dead, and
the new king, Charles, knew not Velasquez, or at least not so well.
Guzman pleaded the cause as strongly as he could, and so, we may assume,
did Narvaez, who was still in Spain, though Antonio Velasquez had
returned to Cuba. The king was not, however, to be so easily persuaded.
He was not unfavorable to the ambition of Velasquez, but neither was he
unhesitatingly favorable to it. Accordingly he temporized. Instead of
giving Velasquez the appointment, he sent two agents, procuradors, to
Hispaniola, to look into the whole matter with plenary authority. These
agents, the name of one of whom marks an epoch in Cuban and in American
history, were Diego de Orellano and Hernando Cortez.

Velasquez was disappointed but not deterred from prosecuting the great
enterprise which he had in mind. He would not wait for the report of the
procuradors and the action which the king might take upon it, but
hastened his preparations for another expedition to Yucatan, which he
regarded as by far the most important land of all that had thus far been
discovered by the Spanish in the Western Hemisphere. The leader of the
new venture was to be his nephew, Juan de Grijalva, who appears not to
have been well fitted for the task. Grijalva was commissioned in
January, 1518, and in the same month set out from Santiago de Cuba with
a flotilla of four vessels. Sailing eastward he rounded Cape Maysi and
thence proceeded north and west along the Cuban coast to what is now
Matanzas, where a stop was made for repairs and supplies. Thence he went
to Havana for further supplies and men, and tarried for some time, so
that it was not until some time in April--some say April 5, others a
much later date--that he finally set out from Cuba. He had four vessels,
carrying two hundred and fifty men, among whom were several of whom the
world was later to hear much; such as Bernal Diaz, and Pedro de
Alvarado, who was captain of one of the vessels. The chief pilot was
Antonio Alaminos, whose plan was to follow the same course that
Cordova's expedition had pursued.

Upon passing Cape San Antonio, however, the little squadron fell into
the grip of a "norther" which carried it somewhat out of its course, and
on May 3 it first sighted land at Cozumel Island, of which Grijalva was
thus the discoverer. Doubling