earnestly supplicate his
majesty's permission to march against this officer.

In these despatches Cortes preferred other much heavier charges against
Diego Velasquez, not only with regard to having bribed Oli to revolt,
but on account of the many conspiracies which he had caused to be formed
against his life during the expeditions to the rebellious provinces,
and, upon the whole, for having attempted to disturb the peace of the
country, which had obliged him to punish the more guilty ones with the
utmost rigour of the law. He then went on to say that he would have been
able to forward his majesty a much larger sum on this occasion than
30,000 pesos, if the revolutionary spirit which his enemies strove to
increase on all sides had not thrown obstacles in his way, and thereby
impeded his operations. Our general concluded by assuring his majesty he
would take every opportunity of sending as much gold as he possibly
could to Spain.

Cortes at the same time wrote to Diego de Ordas, to his father, and to
his relative, the licentiate Francisco Nunez, who was reporter to the
royal council, giving them a full account of the conduct of Rodrigo de
Albornoz; how this man secretly calumniated him in Mexico, because he
had omitted to give him as great a number of Indians as he had required,
and had refused to give him the daughter of the king of Tezcuco in
marriage, for whom he had contracted a better match with a gentleman of
quality; besides which he had been informed that this Albornoz had been
secretary to the bishop of Burgos in Flanders, and that he was a perfect
creature of this prelate. He constantly kept up a secret correspondence
with some one or other, even by means of figures, and Cortes thought it
most likely that he had on this occasion secretly written to his patron
the bishop, and slandered him in every possible manner; he therefore
cautioned his friends to be upon their guard, and narrowly to watch his
interests, for Cortes thought the bishop was at that time still
president of the council of the Indies.

In consequence of these apprehensions, Cortes sent duplicate copies of
all his despatches, so that if one set were seized at Seville by the
bishop's functionaries, the other might arrive safe in the proper hands.

The accountant Albornoz had indeed, as it proved, forwarded letters by
this same vessel to his majesty, to the bishop of Burgos, and to the
royal council of the Indies, in which he renewed all the late