Hernando Cortez
TextLetter to the emperor
"I had hoped," writes the world-weary old man, "that the toils of my youth would have secured me repose in my old age. For forty years I have lived with but little sleep, with bad food, and with weapons of war continually at my side. I have endured all peril, and spent my substance in exploring distant and unknown regions, that I might spread abroad the name of my sovereign, and extend his sway over powerful nations. This I have done without aid from home, and in the face of those who thirsted for my blood. I am now aged, infirm, and overwhelmed with debt." He concluded this affecting epistle by beseeching the emperor to "order the Council of the Indies, with the other tribunals which had cognizance of his suits, to come to a decision, since I am too old to wander about like a vagrant, but ought rather, during the brief remainder of my life, to remain at home and settle my account with heaven, occupied with the concerns of my soul rather than with my substance."
Unavailing appeal
The will
His appeal was unavailing. For three more weary years he lingered about the court, hoping, in the midst of disappointments and intermittent despair, to attain his ends. But at last all hope expired, and the poor old man, with shattered health and a crushed spirit, prepared to return to Mexico in gloom and obscurity to die. He had proceeded as far as Seville, when, overcome by debility and dejection, he could go no farther. It was soon apparent to all that his last hour was at hand. The dying man, with mind still vigorous, immediately executed his will. This long document is quite characteristic of its author. He left nine children, five of whom were born out of wedlock. He remembered them all affectionately in his paternal bequests.
His bequests
He founded a theological seminary at Cojuhacan, in one of the provinces of Mexico, for the education of missionaries to preach the Gospel among the natives. A convent of nuns he also established in the same place, in the chapel of which he wished his remains to be deposited. He also founded a hospital in the city of Mexico, to be dedicated to Our Lady of the Conception.
An uneasy conscience
In these solemn hours of approaching death, his conscience does not appear to have disturbed him at all in reference to his wars of invasion and conquest, and the enormous slaughter which they had caused, but he was troubled in view of the slavery to which they had doomed the poor Mexicans. With dying hand he inscribes the following remarkable lines:
"It has long been a question whether one can conscientiously hold property in Indian slaves. Since this point has not yet been determined, I enjoin it on my son Martin and his heirs that they spare no pains to come to an exact knowledge of the truth, as a matter which concerns the conscience of each one of them no less than mine."
Removal to Castilleja
Cortez's death
His funeral
The removal of his remains
Solemnities
As the noise of the city disturbed the dying man, he was removed to the neighboring village of Castilleja. His son, then but fifteen years of age, watched over his venerated father, and nursed him with filial affection. On the second day of December, fifteen hundred and forty-seven, Cortez died, in the sixty-third year of his age. He was buried with great pomp in the tomb of the Duke of Medina Sidonia at Seville. A vast concourse of the inhabitants of the whole surrounding country attended his funeral. Five years after his death, in 1562, his son Martin removed his remains to Mexico, and deposited them, not at Cojuhacan, as Cortez had requested, but in a family vault in the monastery at Tezcuco. Here the remains of Cortez reposed for sixty-seven years. In 1629 the Mexican authorities decided to transfer them to Mexico, to be deposited beneath the church of St. Francis. The occasion was celebrated with all the accompaniments of religious and military pomp. The bells tolled the funeral knell, and from muffled drums and martial bands sublime requiems floated forth over the still waters of the lake, as the mortal remains of Cortez were borne over the long causeway, where he had displayed such superhuman energy during the horrors of the dismal night.
The monument erected over his remains
Here the ashes of Cortez reposed undisturbed for one hundred and sixty-five years, when the mouldering relics were again removed in 1794, and were more conspicuously enshrined in the Hospital of Our Lady of the Conception, which Cortez had founded and endowed. A crystal coffin, secured with bars of iron, inclosed the relics, over which a costly and beautiful monument was reared.