made forty of his cavalry prisoners, alleging that they had come unwarrantably to usurp the government which belonged to another.  Besides this misfortune, Garay lost four of his ships, by which he was greatly disheartened.  While Cortes was preparing an expedition to Panuco, to resist Garay, Francis de las Casas and Roderigo de la Paz, brought letters-patent to Mexico, by which the emperor gave him the government of New Spain, including Panuco.  On this he desisted from going personally on the expedition, but sent Pedro de Alvarado with a respectable force, both of infantry and cavalry, to defend his government against aggression, and dispatched Diego de Ocampo to communicate the letters-patent to Garay; who thought it better for him to yield himself to Cortes, and went accordingly to Mexico[48].

In the same year, 1523, Gil Goncales de Avila, discovered and peopled a town called San Gil da Buena-vista, in lat. 14 deg.  N. almost in the bottom of the bay of Ascension or Honduras[49].  Likewise, on the 6th December of this year, Peter de Alvarado was sent by Cortes from Mexico with 300 foot, 170 horse, four field-pieces, and some Mexican nobles, to discover and conquer Quahutemallan, Utlatlan, Chiassa, Xochnuxco, and other towns towards the South Sea.  After a most fatiguing march of 400 leagues, passing by Tecoantepec to Xochnuxco, he discovered and conquered the whole of that country, where he built a city called St Jago de Quahutemallan, now Guatimala, of which and of the country he subdued, he is said to have got the government.  In this expedition they passed some rivers, the water of which was so hot that they could scarce endure to wade them.  They found likewise certain hills which produced alum, and one out of which a liquor like oil distilled; likewise sulphur in great abundance, from which the Spaniards made excellent gunpowder[50].  On the 8th December of the same year, Cortes sent Diego de Godoy, with a hundred foot, thirty horse, two field-pieces, and many friendly Indians, to Spiritu Santo; where, joining the captain of that town, they went to Chamolla, the capital of a province of the same name, which they reduced under subjection[51].

In February 1524, Cortes sent Roderigo Rangel, with 150 Spaniards, and many Tlaxcallans and Mexicans, against the Zapotecas and Nixtecas, and other provinces not yet well discovered.  They were at first resisted, but soon defeated the natives, and reduced the country to subjection.  In the same year, Roderigo de Bastidas was sent to discover and reduce the country of Santa Martha; but refusing to allow the soldiers to plunder a certain town, he was assassinated in his bed by Peter Villaforte, formerly his fast friend, who joined in the conspiracy against him.  Pedro de Lugo and his son Don Alfonso were afterward governors of that place, where they conducted themselves as covetous tyrants, and became much disliked[52].  In the same year, the licentiate Lucas Vasques de Aillon