occupations, in 1524 he undertook an expedition of discovery and conquest to Honduras, upon which he was absent until May, 1526, when he returned after enduring much hardship and suffering, to find that enemies had been plotting against him in Mexico. This discovery and the desire of clearing himself with the emperor, caused him to determine to visit Spain where he arrived in May, 1528. Charles the Fifth received him with much favor creating him Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca and military commander of New Spain, and endowing him with vast estates in the lands that he had conquered. In 1530 he returned to Mexico accompanied by his second wife, a lady of good family whom he had married while in Spain. Very soon he entered on a course of expeditions of discovery and maritime adventures which involved him in great pecuniary losses and a quarrel with the viceroy Mendoza; and in 1540 he sailed a second time for Spain to obtain redress from the emperor. But Cortes was no longer the power that he had been; his youth was gone and his work was done, therefore his prayers and remonstrances were treated with cold neglect. For nearly four years he pressed his suit and in February, 1544, we find him writing a letter to the emperor begging him to direct the Council of the Indies to come to a decision upon it. This letter in which pathetically enough, he speaks of himself as "old and poor and indebted," produced no result and once again, worn out and bitterly disappointed, its writer turned his face toward the land that he had won for Spain. But he was never to behold it more. At Seville he was seized with dysentery and passed away December 2, 1547, being then in his sixty-third year. His body was taken to Mexico for burial.