Note 8 — Official Visitation by Valdivia

The visitor turned his attention to the auditors, whom he found already exiled by the governor; and, two of them having died a little while before, he sent for the auditor Bolivar. It is reported that the governor, fearing this man, gave orders that they should put him to death on the route.8 What is certain is, that as he finished drinking a cup of chocolate, he fell dead, and his finger-nails and lips made known the poison; and it is noted that in the following year, about the same time, the said governor died very suddenly, and in melancholy circumstances—according to rumor and letters, like a beast. The last of the officials, the fiscal Alanis, the visitor brought with him to Nueva España, after having confiscated all his goods and inflicted on him a thousand annoyances—as also the dean, Don Miguel Ortiz. With him came the Dominican Verart, in order that with his assistance the visitor might continue the management of his documents.