AUTOGRAPH OF FUENLEAL
(Episcopus Sancti Dominici).
The former Government was at once put on trial, and judgment was in most cases rendered against them, so that their property did not suffice to meet the fines imposed. Cortés got a due share of what they were made to disgorge, in restitution of his own losses through them. Innumerable reforms were instituted, and the natives received greater protection than ever before.
Guzman, meanwhile, was on his expedition toward the Pacific coast, conducting his rapacious and brutal conquest of Nueva Galicia. He refused to obey the call of the new audiencia, while he despatched messengers to Mexico to protect, if possible, his interests. By them also he forwarded his own statement of his case to the Emperor. Cortés, vexed at Guzman’s anticipation of his own intended discoveries toward the Pacific, sent a lieutenant to confront him; but Guzman was wily enough to circumvent the lieutenant, seized him, and packed him off to Mexico with scorn and assurance.
MEXICO AND ACAPULCO.
Fac-simile of a map in Herrera, i. 408.
It was his last hour of triumph. His force soon dwindled; his adherents deserted him; his misdeeds had left him no friends; and he at last deserted the remnant of his army, and starting for Pánuco, turned aside to Mexico on the way. He found in the city a new régime. Antonio de Mendoza had been sent out as viceroy, and to succeed Fuenleal at the same time as president of the audiencia. He had arrived at Vera Cruz in October, 1535. His rule was temperate and cautious. Negroes, who had been imported into the country in large numbers as slaves, plotted an insurrection: but the Viceroy suppressed it; and if there was native complicity in the attempt, it was not proved. The Viceroy had received from his predecessors a source of trial and confusion in the disputed relations which existed between the civil rulers and the Captain-General. There were endless disputes with the second audiencia, and disagreements continued to exist with the Viceroy, about the respective limits of the powers of the two as derived from the Emperor.
Cortés had been at great expense in endeavoring to prosecute discovery in the Pacific, and he had the vexation of seeing his efforts continually embarrassed by the new powers. Previous to his departure for Spain he had despatched vessels from Tehuantepec to the Moluccas to open traffic with the Asiatic Indies; but the first audiencia had prevented the despatch of a succoring expedition which Cortés had planned. On his return to New Spain the Captain-General had begun the construction of new vessels both at Tehuantepec and at Acapulco; but the second audiencia interfered with his employment of Indians to carry his material to the coast. He however contrived to despatch two vessels up the coast under Hurtado de Mendoza, which left in May, 1532. They had reached the coast to the north, where Guzman was marauding, who was glad of the opportunity of thwarting the purpose of his rival. He refused the vessels the refuge of a harbor, and they were subsequently lost. Cortés now resolved to give his personal attention to these sea explorations, and proceeding to Tehuantepec, he superintended the construction of two vessels, which finally left port Oct. 29, 1533. They discovered Lower California. Afterward one of the vessels was separated from the other, and fell in distress into the hands of Guzman while making a harbor on the coast. The other ship reached Tehuantepec. Cortés appealed to the audiencia, who meted equal justice in ordering Guzman to surrender the vessel, and in commanding Cortés to desist from further exploration. An appeal to the Emperor effected little, for it seems probable that the audiencia knew what support it had at court. Cortés next resolved to act on his own responsibility and take command in person of a third expedition.