CHARLES V. PROTECTS CORTEZ AND CONFIRMS HIS ACTS. 83 



behalf, both before councils and king. His father, Don Martin, 

 and his friend, the Duke of Bejar, had been prominent among 

 many in espousing the cause of the absent hero, even before the 

 sovereign's return; — and now, the monarch, whose heart was not 

 indeed ungrateful for the effectual service rendered his throne by 

 the conqueror, and whose mind probably saw not only the justice 

 but the policy of preserving, unalienated, the fidelity and services 

 of so remarkable a personage, — soon determined to look leniently 

 upon all that was really censurable in the early deeds of Cortez. 

 Whilst Charles confirmed his acts in their full extent, he moreover 

 constituted him " Governor, Captain General and Chief Justice of 

 New Spain, with power to appoint to all offices, civil and military, 

 and to order any person to leave the country whose residence 

 there might be deemed prejudicial to the crown." 



On the 15th of October, 1522, this righteous commission was 

 signed by Charles V., at Valladolid. A liberal salary was as- 

 signed the Captain General; his leading officers were crowned 

 with honors and emoluments, and the troops were promised liberal 

 grants of land. Thus, the wisdom of the king, and of the most 

 respectable Spanish nobility, finally crushed the mean, jealous, 

 or avaricious spirits who had striven to leave their slimy traces on 

 the fame of the conqueror ; whilst the Emperor, himself, with his 

 own hand, acknowledged the services of the troops and their 

 leader, in a letter to the Spanish army in Mexico. 



Among the men who felt severely the censure implied by this 

 just and wise conduct of Charles V., was the ascetic Bishop of 

 Burgos, Fonseca, whose baleful influence had fallen alike upon 

 the discoveries of Columbus, and the conquests of Cortez. His 

 bigoted and narrow soul, — schooled in forms, and trained by early 

 discipline, into a querulousness which could neither tolerate any- 

 thing that did not accord with his rules or originate under his 

 orders, — was unable to comprehend the splendid glory of the 

 enterprises of these two heroic chieftains. Had it been his 

 generous policy to foster them, history would have selected this 

 son of the church as the guardian angel over the cradle of the New 

 World; but he chose to be the shadow rather than the shining 

 light of his era, and, whether from age or chagrin, he died in the 

 year after this kingly rebuff from a prince whose councils he had 

 long and unwisely served. 



