56 CORTES SUPERSEDED BY MENDOZA. [1537. 



On the shore of this bay, surrounded by bare mountains of rock, 

 arid and forbidding in appearance, though not more so than the 

 sandy waste about Vera Cruz, Cortes landed with a hundred and 

 thirty men and forty horses, and then sent back two of his vessels to 

 Chiametla, to bring over the remainder of the forces ; hoping to 

 find, in the interior of the new country, another Mexico, in the 

 conquest of which he might employ his powerful energies. The 

 vessels soon reappeared, with a portion of the troops, and were 

 again despatched to the Mexican coast, from which only one of 

 them returned, the other having been wrecked on her way. Cortes 

 thereupon embarked, with seventy men, for Xalisco, from which he 

 came back, after encountering the greatest dangers, just in time 

 to prevent the total destruction by famine of those left at Santa 

 Cruz. 



In these operations, more than a year was consumed, without 

 obtaining any promise of advantage. The new country, so far as it 

 had been explored, was utterly barren, and, except that a few pearls 

 were found on the coast, destitute of all attraction for the Spaniards. 

 The officers of the expedition were discontented : of the men, a 

 number had died from want and disease ; the others were 

 mutinous, and cursed " Cortes, his island, his bay, and his dis- 

 covery." * 



Meanwhile his wife, becoming alarmed by the reports of the ill 

 success of the expedition, which had reached Mexico, sent a vessel 

 to Santa Cruz, with letters entreating his immediate return ; and he, 

 at the same time, learned that he had been superseded in the 

 government of New Spain by Don Antonio de Mendoza, a noble- 

 man of high rank and character, who had already made his 

 entrance into the capital as viceroy. 



The removal of Cortes from the government of the country which 

 had, by his means, been added to the dominions of Spain, was a 

 heavy blow ; particularly as he was, at that moment, much embar- 

 rassed from want of funds, his private property having been seriously 

 injured by the expenses of his recent expeditions, from which no 

 advantage had been obtained. He was, in consequence, obliged to 

 return to Mexico, where he arrived in the beginning of 1537, and, 

 soon after, to recall from Santa Cruz his lieutenant, Francisco de 

 Ulloa, with the forces which had been left there ; and, not being 

 able, at the time, to employ his vessels, he sent two of them, under 

 Grijalva, to Peru, laden with arms, ammunition, and provisions, in 



* Bernal Dias, chap. 199. 



