At this time Diego de Ordas arrived from Cuba, who was said to have circulated the report of our deaths; but he declared that he had only sent an account of the unfortunate catastrophe of Xicalonga as it really happened, and that the misrepresentation proceeded entirely from the factor Salazar.  Cortes had so much business on his hands that he thought proper to drop this affair, and endeavoured to recover his property which had been disposed of under the supposition of his death.  A great part of it had been expended in celebrating his funeral obsequies, and in the purchase of perpetual masses for his soul; but, on his being discovered to be alive, had been repurchased by one Juan Caceres for his own benefit when he might happen to die, so that Cortes could not recover his property.  Ordas, who was a man of much experience, seeing that Cortes was fallen much into neglect since he was superseded from the government, advised him to assume more state and consequence to maintain the respect due to him:  But such was his native plainness of manners, that he never wished to be called otherwise than simply Cortes; a truly noble name, as glorious as those of Cesar, Pompey, or Hanibal among the ancients.  Ordas likewise informed Cortes of a current report in Mexico, that he intended to put Salazar privately to death in prison, and warned him that he was powerfully patronized.  About this time, the treasurer Estrada married one of his daughters to Jorge de Alvarado, and another to Don Luis de Guzman, son to the Conde de Castellar.  Pedro de Alvarado went over to Spain to solicit the government of Guatimala, sending in the meantime his brother Jorge to reduce that province, with a force chiefly composed of the warriors of the different nations that were in our alliance.  The governor also sent a force against the province of Chiapa, under the command of Don Juan Enriquez de Guzman, a near relation to the Duke of Medina Sidonia:  And an expedition was sent against the Zapotecan mountaineers, under Alonzo de Herrera, one of our veteran soldiers.

Having lingered about eight months, Marcos de Aguilar died, and appointed by his testament Alonzo de Estrada the treasurer to succeed him in the government:  But the Cabildo of Mexico and many of the principal Spaniards were very solicitous that Cortes should be associated in the government; and on his peremptory refusal, they recommended that Sandoval, who was then alguazil-major, should act in conjunction with Estrada, which accordingly was the case.  The incompetence of Estrada for conducting the government in the present conjuncture, particularly appeared from the following circumstance.  Nuno de Guzman, who had held the government of Panuco for two years, conducted himself in a furious and tyrannical manner, arbitrarily extending the bounds of his jurisdiction on the most frivolous pretences, and putting to death all who dared to oppose his commands.  Among these, Pedro Gonzalez de Truxillo, having asserted truly that his district