Note 65 — Chapter IV · THE HERO OF THE CONQUEST.

‘Socium et ministrum consiliorum omnium adsumit.’ De Rebus Gestis Ferdinandi Cortesii, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., i. 320. So highly did Velazquez esteem the qualities of his friend, ‘diu multùmque Cortesium rogat, ut secum eat: maria ac montes pollicetur, si operam ad id bellum polliceatur.’ Id., 319. Las Casas, who knew Cortés at a later time, makes him one of the two secretaries of Velazquez, the other being Andrés de Duero; and this would coincide with the above. Las Casas is too inconsistent to be very reliable. On the same page he refers to Cortés as a prudent, reticent man, and also as a prater not to be trusted with secrets; useful to Velazquez only for his knowledge of Latin. Hist. Ind., iv. 10-11. Herrera, dec. i., lib. ix., cap. viii., follows Las Casas. Gomara, Hist. Mex., 6, calls him ‘oficial del tesorero Miguel de Passamõte, para tener cuẽta cõ los quintos y hazienda del rey, y aun el mesmo Diego Velazquez se lo rogo, por ser habil y diligente.’ Gomara may have had his reasons for not connecting him too closely with his later enemy, but he admits on this and on the following page that Velazquez intrusted him with business affairs of his own, which he was afterward charged with having divulged. Among these duties was superintending the construction of a mint and hospital. The position of clerk to a treasurer would of course be inferior to that of secretary to the chief of the expedition; yet if the treasurer was as illiterate as Contador Láres, his clerk would rank rather as deputy.