e bishop of Burgos, who had not been able to hide his
pleasure when he heard that all the gold, with our despatches, had
fallen into the hands of the French corsair.

From this moment we had nothing further to fear from the bishop, for his
majesty now received full particulars of all the circumstances; and
though he felt grieved at the loss of so much gold, yet he was in one
sense pleased it had fallen into the hands of the French king, for it
would convince that monarch we should never let our emperor want for
money to wage war with him. He also sent peremptory orders to the bishop
of Burgos to aid Cortes in every way with regard to the affairs of New
Spain; adding, that he was shortly coming to Spain himself, in order to
investigate the dispute between Cortes and the governor of Cuba. When
news of the capture of Avila, with the loss of the whole treasure we
sent by him, reached New Spain, we all felt exceedingly grieved; but
Cortes immediately collected all the gold and silver he could, which had
recently been brought in from the province of Mechoacan, and of this he
ordered a cannon to be cast, which he intended as a present to the
emperor, and gave to it the name of phoenix.

The government of the township of Quauhtitlan was also carried on in the
name of Avila until the arrival, three years after, of his brother Gil
Gonsalez in New Spain, who was deputed by Avila to take the sole
government of his Indian property, as he himself was determined never
again to cross the sea, though he had obtained the appointment of
treasurer of Yucatan.

But all this is rather foreign to my narrative, and I will rather relate
what happened to Sandoval and the other officers whom Cortes sent out to
form settlements in the provinces. But so many circumstances happened in
the meantime, that I was obliged to break the thread of my history, and
they were certainly too important to withhold from the curious reader.
There was the arrival of Christobal de Tapia in Vera Cruz, which obliged
Cortes to recall Sandoval and Alvarado from their expeditions into the
provinces, in order that they might assist him with their excellent
support and counsel in a matter of so much importance. Then there was
the insurrection in the province of Panuco, and the mission to our
emperor; and so it happened that my narrative became rather confused.

CHAPTER CLX.

_How Sandoval arrives in the town of Tustepec, what he did there;
his march to th