The Treasurer and other gentlemen who were partizans of Cortés saw that it was advisable for Cortés to return at once to New Spain, for factions and parties were already springing up, and the Accountant was not content that the Factor and Veedor should remain prisoners, and above all the Accountant stood in great fear of Cortés, when he should hear of what he [the Accountant] had written about him to His Majesty, as I have already stated in parts of former Chapters which tell about it. So they decided to go and beg the Franciscan Friars to grant leave for Fray Diego Altamirano to go to Trujillo in a ship, which they had ready for him well provisioned and with a good crew, and make Cortes come back, for that Friar was his kinsman and before he had become a Friar had been a soldier, a man of war who understood negotiation, and the Friars approved of it and Fray Diego Altamirano was quite willing to go.

We need not dwell on the voyage of the Friar, who was making his preparations, and I will relate that while the Factor and Veedor were prisoners, the Accountant, as I have repeatedly mentioned, apparently behaved very trickily and with ill will when he saw that the affairs of Cortés were on the mend.