ntinued to place implicit
confidence in the loyalty of Cortes towards his majesty, and in the same
way as he had previously offered to answer for Cortes with his head, he
was now quite ready to do the same again, and to stake the whole of his
possessions in the bargain. After the duke had thus declared himself to
the emperor, he gave his majesty an account of the letters which Cortes
had written to his own father, in which he had explained the reasons of
Albornoz's hatred to him. He then reminded his majesty of the vast
quantities of gold which Cortes had forwarded to Spain, and of the many
and great services he had altogether rendered to the crown, and brought
forth excellent arguments in justification of Cortes' conduct. His
majesty was so far convinced of the sound reasoning of the duke, that he
determined to despatch to New Spain a man of high rank, distinguished
talents, and of an unblemished character, there thoroughly to
investigate the matter on the spot itself.

The imperial court was at that time in Toledo, of which town a cavalier
and licentiate, named Luis Ponce de Leon, a cousin to the corregidor,
earl Don Martin de Cordoba, was then the vice-regidor. It was on this
gentleman that his majesty's choice fell, and Ponce de Leon accordingly
received the important commission to repair, without delay, to New
Spain, there to make the strictest inquiries into the accusations which
had been made against Cortes, and if he found him guilty to punish him
according to the utmost rigour of the law.

The licentiate Luis Ponce de Leon promised his majesty to employ his
utmost endeavours to bring the truth of the matter to light, and made
preparations for his journey to the New World; but he did not leave
Spain till two and a half years after, so that I shall subsequently
again have to recur to these circumstances. Nor did we receive any
information from Cortes' father of what had taken place in Spain until
after this time had elapsed. For the rest, Albornoz continued regularly
to despatch his slanders to the emperor, and even did not spare the
viceroy himself, Don Antonio de Mendoza, a man of exalted mind, worthy
of the most grateful remembrance, and whose name will be ever glorious.
However spotless the government of this gentleman might be, however
honest in his distribution of justice, yet this Albornoz presumed to
slander him to the emperor, and this merely because they were not upon
good terms with each other. Subseq