How letters came to Cortés from Spain from Don Garcia de Loaysa, Cardinal of Siguenza, who was President of the [Council of] the Indies and soon afterwards Archbishop of Seville, and from other gentlemen, [advising him] in any case to come at once to Castile, and they brought the news that his father Martin Cortés was dead, and what he did about it.

I have already related in the last chapter what took place between Cortés, the Treasurer, the Factor, and the Veedor, and the reason of his banishment from Mexico, and how the Bishop of Tlaxcala came on two occasions to attempt a reconciliation, and how Cortés, who would not [allow himself to] be influenced in the least by letters or in any other way, got ready to go to Castile. At that very moment letters came to him from the President of the Indies, Don Garcia de Loaysa and from the Duque de Bejar and other gentlemen, in which they told him that, during his absence, complaints against him had been laid before His Majesty, and the complaints contained reports of many ill deeds and deaths which he had caused to be inflicted on those who had been sent out by His Majesty, and that in all events he should return to defend his honour. They also brought him news that his father Martin Cortés had died, and when he saw those letters he was greatly grieved both on account of the death of his father and also for what they falsely said that he had done; and he put on mourning, although he already wore it for the death of his wife Doña Catalina Juarez la Marcayda. He showed great grief about his father and paid him as great funeral honours as he was able, and if hitherto he had been eager to go to Castile, from this time forward he made the greater haste about it, for he at once ordered his Mayordomo, named Pedro Ruiz de Esquivel, a native of Seville, to go to Vera Cruz and buy the two ships which had arrived there and had the reputation of being new and swift, and he was preparing biscuit and salt beef and bacon and all that was necessary for ships’ stores very completely, as was befitting a great and rich lord such as Cortés, [including] all such things as could be found in New Spain that were of use on a voyage, and preserves which had come from Spain, and they were so abundant and of such variety that what was left over [when they arrived] in Castile would have sufficed for two ships for another couple of years, even if they had carried many more men.