Spanish forces in the south-west. Additional men were brought by Olid in connection with his second expedition to Michoacan,[1] including the municipal officers appointed by Cortés, and the town was now formally established on the site already chosen, a league and a half from the sea,[2] and named Zacatula, after the river. One reason for Olid's coming was to aid in reducing to obedience the Indians who had been appropriated in repartimientos, but who had refused to pay tribute, and even killed several collectors.
The emperor had expressed great interest in the projects opened by the discovery of the South Sea beyond new Spain, and by cédula of June 1523 he enjoined Cortés to hasten the search for a strait.[3] The latter needed no prompting, but the building of the vessels progressed slowly, owing to the difficulty and delay attending the furnishing of certain material. Finally, when this was obtained, a fire reduced nearly everything to ashes.[4] Without being in the least discouraged, Cortés hastened to repair the loss, and toward the end of 1524 such progress had been made that he expressed the hope of despatching the vessels in the middle of the following year. "With them, God willing, I shall make your Majesty lord of more kingdoms and seignories than are as yet known to our nation."[5] The search for the strait should receive the first attention, however, since the sovereign so desired it, for by it the route to the Spice Islands would
- ↑ Mas de cie Españoles, y quarenta de cauallo, y Mechuacaneses,' Gomara, Hist. Mex., 220. Bernal Diaz reduces the force to 45 men. Hist. Verdad., 167. On the way he was attacked and suffered a loss of two killed and 15 wounded. Herrera makes the force larger than Gomara, and allows Viliafuerte to come at the same time. dec. iii. lib. iii. cap. xvii.;
- ↑ Herrera, Id., cap. xviii., associates Simon de Cuenca with Villafuerte as a leading man.
- ↑ In Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xxiii. 366-7.
- ↑ Me cuestan hoy los navíos, sin haberlos echado al agua, mas de ocho mil pesos de oro, sin otras cosas extraordinarias,' says Cortés in his letter of October 1524. Cartas, 308. Testimony in Cortés, Residencia, 1. 27, etc., assumes that the delays were on purpose, since Cortés had_ built the ships as a means to escape from the country with his embezzled millions.
- ↑ 'No le quedará á V. Excels, mas que hacer para ser monarca del mundo.' Cartas, 308.
