SANDOVAL.
Fac-simile of an engraving in Herrera, ii. 32. It is dressed up in Cabajal’s México, ii. 254.
Cortés, with his following, had landed at Palos late in 1528, and was under the necessity, a few days later, of laying the body of Sandoval—worn out with the Honduras campaign—in the vaults of La Rabida. It was a sad duty for Cortés, burdened with the grief that his young lieutenant could not share with him the honors now in store, as he made his progress to Toledo, where the Court then was. He was received with unaccustomed honor and royal condescensions,—only the prelude to substantial grants of territory in New Spain, which he was asked to particularize and describe. He was furthermore honored with the station and title of Marqués del Valle de Oajaca. He was confirmed as captain-general; but his reinstatement as governor was deferred till the reports of the new commission in New Spain should be received. He was, however, assured of liberty to make discoveries in the south sea, and to act as governor of all islands and parts he might discover westward.
CORTÉS.
Fac-simile of an engraving in Herrera, ii. 1. There is also a portrait which hangs, or did hang, in the series of Viceroys in the Museo at Mexico. This was engraved for Don Antonio Uguina, of Madrid; and from his engraving the picture given second by Prescott is copied. Engravings of a picture ascribed to Titian are given in Townsend’s translation of Solis (London, 1724) and in the Madrid edition of Solis (1783). Cf. H. H. Bancroft, Mexico, i. 39, note. The Spanish translation of Clavigero, published in Mexico in 1844, has a portrait; and one “after Velasquez” is given in Laborde’s Voyage pittoresque, vol. iv., and in Jules Verne’s Découverte de la Terre.
A small copperplate representing Cortés in armor, with an uplifted finger and a full beard (accompanied by a brief sketch of his career) is given in Select Lives collected out of A. Thevet, Englished by I. S. (Cambridge, 1676), which is a section of a volume, Prosopographia (Cambridge, 1676), an English translation of Thevet’s Collection of Lives. The copper may be the same used in the French original.
The wife of Cortés, whom he had left in Cuba, had joined him in Mexico after the conquest, and had been received with becoming state. Her early decease, after a loftier alliance would have become helpful to his ambition, had naturally raised a suspicion among Cortés’ traducers that her death had been prematurely hastened.