RETURNS TO SPAIN DEATH WHERE ARE HIS BONES? 91 



the viceroy Mendoza was fitting out for its conquest. But he was 

 baulked in his wishes, and was obliged to confine his future efforts 

 for Mexico to works of beneficence in the capital. 



That portion of the conqueror's life which impressed its power- 

 ful characteristics upon New Spain was now over. The rest of his 

 story belongs rather to biography and the Old World than to 

 a compressed narrative of Mexican history, for although he re- 

 mained long in the country, and afterwards fought successfully 

 under the Emperor's banner in other lands, it appears that he was 

 unable to win the Spanish crown to grant him authority over the 

 empire he had subdued. He died at Castilleja de la Cuesta, near 

 Seville, on the 2d of December, 1547. 



Cortez provided in his will that his body should be in- 

 terred in the place where he died, if that event occurred in Spain, 

 and that, within ten years, his bones should be removed to 

 New Spain and deposited in a convent of Franciscan nuns, 

 which, under the name of La Concepcion, he ordered to be 

 founded in Cuyoacan. Accordingly, his corpse was first of all 

 laid in the convent of San Isidro, outside the walls of Seville, 

 whence it was carried to Mexico and deposited in the church of 

 San Francisco, at Tezcoco, inasmuch as the convent of Cuyoacan 

 was not yet built. Thence the ashes of the hero were carried, in 

 1629, to the principal chapel of the church of San Francis, in the 

 capital; and, at last, were translated, on the 8th of November, 1794, 

 to the church of the Hospital of Jesus, which Cortez had founded. 

 When the revolution broke out, a vindictive feeling prevailed not 

 only against the living Spaniards, but against the dead, and men 

 were found, who invoked the people to tear these honored relics from 

 their grave, and after burning them at San Lazaro, to scatter the 

 hated ashes to the winds. But, in the government and among the 

 principal citizens, there were many individuals who eagerly sought 

 an opportunity to save Mexico from this disgraceful act. These 

 persons secretly removed the monument, tablet, and remains of the 

 conqueror from their resting place in the Church of Jesus, and 

 there is reason to believe, that at length they repose in peaceful 

 concealment in the vaults of the family in Italy. Past generations 

 deprived him, whilst living, of the right to rule the country he had 

 won by his valor. Modern Mexico has denied his corpse even the 

 refuge of a grave. 1 



1 See Alaman, Disertaciones sobre la historia de la Republica Mexicana, vol. 

 2, p. 93 Appendix. 



