Tapia Saw Evidently That It Would Be No
Easy Matter To Enter Upon His Office Of Governor, And Fell Sick With
Vexation.
The before-mentioned deputies informed Cortes by letter of all
that had passed, and advised him to try the all-powerful influence of gold
on the would-be governor.
Cortes complied with this advice, and
transmitted a good quantity of golden ingots by return of the express, by
means of which his friends gratified the avarice of Tapia, under pretence
of purchasing one of his ships, with some horses and negroes; and Tapia
set sail in his other vessel for Hispaniola, where he was very ill
received by the royal audience and the Jeronymite brotherhood, as he had
undertaken this business contrary to their express orders.
I have formerly mentioned some particulars of an unsuccessful expedition
set on foot by Garray, the governor of Jamaica, for the establishment of a
colony on the river of Panuco; and as Cortes was informed that Garray
intended to resume that project, he resolved to anticipate him,
considering the country on that river as included in New Spain. Having
likewise been informed that Narvaez, who still continued a prisoner at
Villa Rica, had held some confidential intercourse with Tapia, in which he
advised him to quit the country as soon as possible, and to lay a
statement of the whole before his patron the bishop of Burgos; Cortes
sent orders to Rangel, now commandant at Villa Rica, to send up Narvaez to
Cojohuacan, where Cortes resided until the palace he meant to inhabit at
Mexico was completed.
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