Sailing in a northwesterly direction, favorable winds drove them rapidly across the vast Gulf of California until they arrived at Santa Cruz, on the southern extremity of that majestic peninsula. A landing was immediately effected, and the ships were sent back to Mexico to bring the remaining colonists. Cortez did not take his wife with him, but she was left in their princely mansion on the southern slope of the Cordilleras. But disasters seemed to accumulate whenever Cortez was not personally present. The ships were delayed by head winds and by storms. The colonists at Santa Cruz, in consequence of this delay, nearly perished of famine. Twenty-three died of privation and hunger. At length, in the midst of general murmurings and despair, one of the ships returned. It brought, however, but little relief, as the ships which were loaded with provisions for the supply of the colonists were still missing. The discontent in the starving colony became so loud, that Cortez himself took fifty soldiers and embarked in search of the missing ships. With great care he cruised along the Mexican shore, and at last found one stranded on the coast of Jalisco, and the other partially wrecked upon some rocks. He, however, got them both off, repaired them, and brought them, laden with provisions, to the half-famished colony at Santa Cruz. The imprudent colonists ate so voraciously that a fatal disease broke out among them, which raged with the utmost virulence. Many died. Cortez became weary of these scenes of woe. The expedition, in a pecuniary point of view, had been a total failure, and it had secured for the conqueror no additional renown. The Marchioness of the Valley, the wife of Cortez, became so anxious at the long absence of her husband, that she fitted out two ships to go in search of him. Ulloa, who commanded these ships, was so fortunate as to trace Cortez to his colony. Cortez not unwillingly yielded to the solicitations of his wife and returned to Mexico. He was soon followed by the rest of the wretched colonists, and thus disastrously terminated this expedition. In these various enterprises, Cortez had expended from his private property over three hundred thousand crowns, and had received nothing in return. As he considered himself the servant of his sovereign, and regarded these efforts as undertaken to promote the glory and the opulence of Spain, he resolved to return to Castile, to replenish, if possible, his exhausted resources from the treasury of the crown. He had also sundry disputes with the authorities in Mexico which he wished to refer to the arbitration of the emperor. He was a disappointed and a melancholy man. His career had been one of violence and of blood, and "his ill fortune," says Diaz, "is ascribed to the curses with which he was loaded."