[187] “Item, que cualquier vecino que tubiere Indios de repartimiento sea obligado á poner en ellos en cada un año con cada cien Indios de los que tuvieren de repartimiento mil sarmientos aunque sean de la planta de su tierra, escogiendo la mejor que pudiesse hallar.” Ordenanzas municipales, año de 1524, MS.
[188] Ordenanzas municipales, año de 1524, MS.
[189] [“No general interest would attach to the private undertakings of Cortés, if the sole object of them had been the aggrandizement of his own fortune. But they were in fact the germs of what are now the most important branches of the national wealth; and they prove the grandeur of those views which in the times of the Conquest gave an impulse to whatever promised to contribute to the prosperity of the country.” Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. ii. p. 63.]
[190] “Tengo de ser causa, que Vuestra Cesarea Magestad sea en estas partes Señor de mas Reynos, y Señoríos que los que hasta hoy en nuestra Nacion se tiene noticia.” Rel. Quarta de Cortés, ap. Lorenzana, p. 374.
[191] “Much as I esteem Hernando Cortés,” exclaims Oviedo, “for the greatest captain and most practised in military matters of any we have known, I think such an opinion shows he was no great cosmographer.” (Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 41.) Oviedo had lived to see its fallacy.
[192] Martyr, Opus Epist., ep. 811.
[193] Rel. Quarto, ap. Lorenzana, p. 385.
[194] The illusion at home was kept up, in some measure, by the dazzling display of gold and jewels remitted from time to time, wrought into fanciful and often fantastic forms. One of the articles sent home by Cortés was a piece of ordnance, made of gold and silver, of very fine workmanship, the metal of which alone cost 25,000 pesos de oro. Oviedo, who saw it in the palace, speaks with admiration of this magnificent toy. Hist. de las Ind., MS., lib. 33, cap. 41.
[195] Among these may be particularly mentioned the Letters of Alvarado and Diego de Godoy, transcribed by Oviedo in his Hist. de las Ind., MS. (lib. 33, cap. 42-44), and translated by Ramusio for his rich collection, Viaggi, tom. iii.
[196] See, among others, his orders to his kinsman, Francisco Cortés,—“Instruccion civil y militar por la Expedicion de la Costa de Colima.” The paper is dated in 1524, and forms part of the Muñoz collection of MSS.