from the usurper.  He replied kindly:  “My dear friends, this villainous factor is very powerful.  If I go along with you to Mexico, he may waylay us by the road and murder us all.  I think it better for me to go privately to Mexico with only three or four of you, that I may come upon him at unawares, and that all the rest of you rejoin Sandoval and go along with him to Mexico.”  When I saw that Cortes was resolved on going privately to Mexico, I anxiously requested to attend him, as I had hitherto accompanied him in all his difficulties and dangers.  He complimented me on my fidelity, but insisted on my continuing with Sandoval.  Several of the colonists of Truxillo began to grow mutinous, because Cortes had neglected promoting them to offices; but he pacified them by promises of providing for them when he should be replaced in his government of Mexico.  Previous to his intended departure, he wrote to Diego de Godoy, to quit Puerto Cavallos with his settlers, where they were unable to remain on account of mosquitos and other vermin, ordering them to relieve us in the good settlement of Naco.  He also ordered that we should take the province of Nicaragua in our way to Mexico, as it was a country in his opinion worth taking care of.  We took our leave of Cortes, who embarked on his intended voyage, and we set out cheerfully for Naco to join Sandoval, as Mexico was now the object of our march.  The route to Naco was as usual attended with much difficulty and distress, yet we got safe there, and found that Captain De Garro had set off for Nicaragua, to inform his commander Hernandez that Cortes was setting out for Mexico, and had promised to give him all the assistance in his power.

Two confidential friends of Pedro Aries had come to the knowledge of the private correspondence between Hernandez and Cortes, and suspected that Hernandez meant to detach himself from the command of Aries, and to surrender his province to Cortes.  The names of these men were Garruito and Zamorrano, the former of whom was urged by an ancient enmity to Cortes, on account of a rivalship between them in Hispaniola when both young men, about a lady, which ended in a duel.  These persons communicated intelligence of all they knew to Aries, who immediately hastened to Nicaragua, to seize all the parties concerned.  Garro took the alarm in time, and made his escape to us; but Hernandez, relying on his former intimacy with Aries, expected that he would not proceed to extremities against him, and waited his arrival.  He was miserably disappointed in these hopes, as Aries, after a summary process, ordered him to execution as a traitor to his superior officer.