wikship] CHARACTER OF NIZA 367 



lauds. Friar Marcos was not a liar, but it is impossible to ignore the 

 charges against him quite as easily as Mr Bandelier has done. 



Pedro Castaiieda makes some very damaging statements, which are not 

 conclusive proof of the facts. Like the statements of Suarez de Peralta, 

 they represent the popular estimation of the father provincial, and they 

 repeat the stories which passed current regarding him, when the later 

 explorations had destroyed the vision that had been raised by the 

 reports of the friar's exploration. The accusations made by Cortes 

 deserve more careful consideration. Cortes returned to Spain about 

 the time that the preparations for the Coronado expedition were defl- 

 uitely begun. Soon after his arrival at court, June 25, 1540, 1 he 

 addressed a formal memorial to the King, setting forth in detail the 

 ill treatment which he had received from Mendoza. In this he declared 

 that after the viceroy had ordered him to withdraw his men from their 

 station on the coast of the mainland toward the north — where they 

 were engaged iu making ready for extended inland exploratious — he 

 had a talk with Friar Marcos. "And I gave him," says Cortes, "an 

 account of this said country and of its discovery, because I had deter- 

 mined to send him in my ships to follow up the said northern coast 

 and conquer that country, because he seemed to understand something 

 about matters of navigation. The said friar communicated this to the 

 said viceroy, and he says that, with his permission, he went by land 

 in search of the same coast and country as that which I had discov- 

 ered, and which it was and is my right to conquer. And since his 

 return, the said friar has published the statement that he came within 

 sight of the said country, which I deny that he has either seen or dis- 

 covered; but instead, in all that the said friar reports that he has seen, 

 he only repeats the account I had given him regarding the information 

 which I obtained from the Iudians of the said country of Santa Cruz, 

 because everything which the said friar says that he discovered is just 

 the same as what these said Indians had told me: and iu enlarging 

 upon this and in pretending to report what he neither saw nor learned, 

 the said Friar Marcos does nothing new, because he has done this 

 many other times, and this was his regular habit, as is notorious in the 

 provinces of Peru aud Guatemala; and sufficient evidence regarding 

 this will be given to the court whenever it is necessary." 2 



This is a serious charge, but so far as is known it was never substan- 

 tiated. Cortes was anxious to enforce his point, and he was not always 

 scrupulous in regard to the exact truth. The important point is that 

 such charges were made by a man who was in the position to learn all 



1 The document, as printed in Doc. Ined. Hist. Espana, vol. iv, pp. 209-217, is not dated. Tbe date 

 given in the text is taken from the heading or title to the petition, which, if not the original, has at 

 least the authority of Senor Navarrete, the editor of this Coleccion when the earlier volumes were 

 printed. This memorial appears, from the contents, to have been one of the documents submitted in 

 tbe litigation then going on between the rival claimants for the privilege of exploring the country 

 discovered by Friar Marcos, although the document is not printed with the other papers in the case. 



2 Docutnentos Ineditos Hist. Espana, vol. iv, p. 211: Memorial que die el Marques del Valle en 

 Madrid & 25 de Junio de 1540. . . . "A! tiempo que yo vine de la dicha tierra el dicho Fray Marcos 



