CHAPTER IV.
THE HERO OF THE CONQUEST.
Birthplace or Hernan Cortés — His Coming Compensatory for the Devil — sent Luther — Parentage — Hernan a Sickly Child — Saint Peter his Patron — He is Sent to Salamanca — Returns Home — Thinks of Córdoba and Italy — And of Ovando and the Indies — Chooses the Latter — Narrow Escape during a Love Intrigue — Ovando Sails without Him — Cortés Goes to Valencia — Is there Ill — Returns Home — Finally Sails for the Indies — His Reception at Santo Domingo — He Fights Indians under Velazquez, and is Given an Encomienda — Goes to Cuba with Velazquez — Makes Love to Catalina Suarez — But Declines to Marry — Velazquez Insists — Cortes Rebels — Seizures, Imprisonments, Escapes, and Reconciliation.
Let us now look into the life of this Cuban magistrate, so suddenly raised to prominence.
Medellin, a small town of Estremadura, Spain, was the birthplace of Hernan Cortés, and 1485 the year in which he was born — miraculously born, as Mendieta and others believe, and perhaps by way of compensation for the appearing about this time of Martin Luther.[1] The shade of Montezuma, peradventure,
- ↑ Indeed, to make the miracle perfect in all its details, a little warping of the facts is perhaps allowable. So when the zealous chroniclers bring into the world the same year, the same day, even the self-same hour, these two great champions for the souls of men, we should not be too critical, though ill truth there were two years difference m their ages. 'Y asi, no carece de misterio que el mismo año que Lutero nació en Islebio,' that is to say Eisleben, 'villa de Sajonia, nació Hernando Cortes en Medellin, villa de España; aquel para turbar el mundo y meter debajo de la bandera del demonio a muchos de los fieles que de padres y abuelos y muchos tiempos atras eran cató1icos, y este para traer al gremio de la Iglesia infinita multitud de gentes que por años sin cuento habian estado debajo del poder de Satanás envueltos en vicios y ciegos con la idolatria.' Mendieta, His Ecles., 174-5. Pizarro y Orellana will not be outdone by any one in zeal or mendacity. 'Nació este Ilustre Varon el dia mismo que aquella bestia infernal, el Perfido Heresiarca Lutero, salió al mundo.' Varones Ilustres, (56. Bernal Diaz is the first authority on the question of age. 'En el año que passamos con Cortés dende Cuba,' he writes
