these people, for there was plenty to do all this
with, but certainly he should have given the preference to his soldiers,
as he had been recommended to do by his majesty; to those men through
whose assistance he was elevated to that high station. Whenever any
campaign was in contemplation, or any battles to be fought, he never for
an instant forgot where every individual man of us was to be found, and
his commands to march to the field of battle never failed to reach us.
But I will put an end to my complaints of the neglect which we suffered,
for now it cannot be remedied.

Though I must not forget to mention how conscious Cortes was of the
injustice which he had done us, and that he even acknowledged it. After
the death of Luis Ponce de Leon and of Marcos de Aguilar soon after,
whom the former, as will be seen in the proper place, appointed his
successor in the government, myself, with several officers and
cavaliers of the veteran Conquistadores called upon Cortes, and begged
of him, conformably to his majesty's commands, to give us some of the
numerous Indians which fell to his share on that occasion. To this he
replied, that we fared no worse than he himself did. "But," added he,
"if his majesty should again be pleased to appoint me governor of New
Spain, upon my conscience, I will repair the neglect you have suffered
at my hands, and will bestow the best commendaries on those for whom his
majesty intended them. You may depend upon it I will make good the great
errors I have committed."

With these fine words and flattering promises he thought to satisfy the
old and tried Conquistadores.

A little before Cortes received the appointment of governor, the new
officers of the crown arrived in Mexico: these were Alonso de Estrada,
of Ciudad Real, as royal treasurer; as factor, Gonzalo de Salazar; as
accountant, Rodrigo de Albornoz, of Paladinos, (Julian de Alderete
having died a short time previously); as veedor, Pedro Almindez
Chirinos, a native of Ubeda, or of Baeza, besides many others.

About this time Rodrigo Rangel, although he was neither present at the
siege of Mexico nor in many of the great battles we fought in New Spain,
all of a sudden got it into his head that he must also reap some glory
to himself; he therefore begged of Cortes to give him a small body of
troops in order to put down the rebellion which had arisen among the
Zapotec townships, and also that Pedro de Ircio might be allowed to join
the exp