352 THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540-ir.IL' [eth.ann.U 



Cruz, 1 near the modern La Paz. Storms and shipwreck, hunger and 

 surfeiting, reduced the numbers and the enthusiasm of the men whom 

 he had conducted thither, and when his vessels returned from the 

 mainland with the news that Mendoza had arrived in Mexico, and 

 bringing letters from his wife urging him to return at once, Cortes 

 went back to Mexico. A few months later he recalled the settlers 

 whom he had left at Santa Cruz, in accordance, it may be, with the 

 command or advice of Mendoza. 3 When the stories of Cabeza de Vaca 

 suggested the possibility of making desirable conquests toward the 

 north, Cortes possessed a better outfit for undertaking this work than 

 any of the others who were likely to be rivals for the privilege of 

 exploring and occupying that region. 



Pedro de Alvarado was the least known of these rival claimants. 

 He had been a lieutenant of Cortes until he secured an independent 

 command in Guatemala, Yucatan and Honduras, where he subdued the 

 natives, but discovered nothing except that there was nowhere in these 

 regions any store of gold or treasures. Abandoning this field, he 

 tried to win a share in the conquests of Pizarro and Almagro. He 

 approached Peru from the north, and conducted his army across the 

 mountains. This march, one of the most disastrous in colonial history, 

 so completely destroyed the efficiency of his force that the conquerors 

 of Peru easily compelled him to sell them what was left of his expedi- 

 tion. They paid a considerable sum, weighed out in bars of silver 

 which he found, after his return to Panama, to be made of lead with 

 a silver veneering. 3 Alvarado was ready to abandon the work of con- 

 quering America, and had forwarded a petition to the King, asking 

 that he might be allowed to return to Spain, when Mendoza, or the 

 audiencia which was controlled by the enemies of Alvarado, furthered 

 his desires by ordering him to go to the mother country and present 

 himself before the throne. This was in 1536. While at court Alvarado 

 must have met Cabeza de Vaca. He changed his plans for making a 

 voyage to the South seas, and secured from the King, whose favor he 

 had easily regained, a commission which allowed him to 'build a fleet 

 in Central America and explore the South sea — the Pacific — toward 

 the west or the north. He returned to America early in 1539, bringing 

 with him everything needed in the equipment of a large fleet. 



Mendoza, meanwhile, 1536-1539, had been making plans and prepa- 

 rations. He had not come to the New World as an adventurer, and he 

 lacked the spirit of eager, reckless, hopeful expectation of wealth and 

 fame which accomplished so much for the geographical unfolding of the 

 two Americas. Mendoza appears to have arranged his plans as carefully 

 as if he had been about to engage in some intrigue at court. He rec- 



1 i hi the maps it is usually designated as S. f. 



2 The details of this episode are given iu the relations and petil ions of fortes. H. H. Bancroft tells 

 the story in his North Mexican States, vol. i, p. 77. The Cortes map of 1536 is reproduced, from a 

 traciDg, in Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. ii, p. 442. 



3 Tli is is the story which < i-aroilaso de la Vega tells iu his Commentates Reales, pt. ii, lib. ii. 



