ABSTRACT
When the partisans of Diego Velásquez realized the fact that we had chosen Cortés for our Captain and Chief Justice, and had founded a town and chosen the Alcaldes and Regidores, and appointed Pedro de Alvarado as captain [of expeditions] and named the Alguacil Mayor and Maestro de Campo and had done all that I have narrated, they were angry and furious and they began to excite factions and meetings and to use abusive language about Cortés and those of us who had elected him, saying that it was not right to do these things unless all the captains and soldiers who had come on the expedition had been parties to it; that Diego Velásquez had given Cortés no such powers, only authority to trade, and that we partisans of Cortés should take care that our insolence did not so increase as to bring us to blows. Then Cortés secretly told Juan de Escalante that we should make him produce the instructions given him by Diego Velásquez. Upon this Cortés drew them from his bosom and gave them to the King’s scribe to read aloud. In these instructions were the words: “As soon as you have gained all you can by trading, you will return,” and the document was signed by Diego Velásquez and countersigned by his Secretary, Andrés de Duero. We begged Cortés to cause this document to be attached to the deed recording the power we had given him, as well as the proclamation which he issued in the Island of Cuba. And this was done so that his Majesty in Spain should know that all that we did was done in his royal service, and that they should not bring against us anything but the truth; and it was a good precaution, seeing how we were treated in Spain by Don Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos and Archbishop of Rosano (for such were his titles) who, we knew for certain, took steps to destroy us as I shall tell later on.
