supplies, and
resumed his voyage. He had previously helped himself freely from a royal
storehouse at Macaca, saying that he was going on the King's business
and was therefore entitled to the King's goods. Also he is said to have
stopped a merchant ship bound for Hispaniola, and to have taken such
goods from its cargo as he desired.

Thus provided, he next put in at the harbor at or near Batabano which
had in 1514 been called San Cristobal de la Havana, but which by this
time was falling into some disuse and was surrendering its name to the
far more important port on the northern coast. Here another messenger
from Velasquez intercepted him, with a similar command, to which Cortez
gave a similar reply. Last of all, he touched at Guane, on what is now
appropriately known as Cortez Bay, near the western extremity of the
island; and thence, at the middle of February, 1519, left Cuba for the
island of Cozumel, thence to proceed to Vera Cruz, Mexico. The story of
his burning his ships after he had landed, in order that his men might
have no thought or hope of returning, is historic, and is true. But in
effect he did the same, at least for himself, before that time. He
departed from Cuba in circumstances which made his return to that island
impossible; at least as long as Velasquez was its governor. Then, to
seal the matter and make the breach with his former friend and patron
more absolutely irremediable, immediately upon landing at Vera Cruz he
organized a government by appointing some of his own men to be a
municipal council. Then to that Council of his own creation he
surrendered the commission which Velasquez had bestowed upon him; and
finally, also from his own creatures, he accepted appointment as Royal
Governor of New Spain!

It was of course out of the question that Velasquez would meekly
acquiesce in this flouting of his authority, and particularly in this
open attempt to deprive him of his newly-won authority as Adelantado of
Mexico. He immediately reported to the King what Cortez had done, and
protested against it as a defiance of the King's authority as well as
his own. But Cortez answered his protests and appeals to the Crown with
still more potent arguments in justification of his course. These
arguments took the form of bars and ingots of gold, which he secured in
Mexico and sent to Spain; in some cases "ballasting his ships" with the
precious metal. One of the first of these treasure ships was a
brigantine, d