The victors were greatly disappointed in the amount of the precious metals which fell into their hands. What remained of the royal treasures Guatimozin had ordered to be thrown into the lake. Much spoil was carried off by the Indian auxiliaries, and much probably was lost or destroyed in the ruins of the city. The whole treasure collected was inferior in amount to that which the Spaniards had formerly received as a present from Montezuma; and the adventurers clamorously expressed their dissatisfaction. Pressed by this spirit of discontent, Cortez gave way to a passion, as alien to that undefined feeling which we call the spirit of chivalry, as to the natural laws of charity and justice; and tried, in vain, to extract by torture from the royal prisoner and one of his favourite followers a discovery of the treasures which were supposed to be hidden. Overcome by pain, the latter cast a look on his master, which seemed to ask permission to reveal what he knew. Guatimozin indignantly replied to the implied entreaty—“Am I reposing on a bed of flowers?” and the faithful subject kept silence, and died. The emperor, with his two principal officers, was afterwards hanged, on a groundless charge of having excited insurrection. The provinces were readily overrun after the fall of the capital, and made subject to Spain; though intolerable oppression often produced insurrections, which were put down with unrelenting severity. Having conquered an empire without commission from the monarch in whose name he made war, Cortez narrowly escaped having to answer as a criminal for the irregularity of his proceedings. But in 1522 he succeeded in procuring a royal commission, which constituted him captain-general and governor of New Spain. Still his actions were watched with an ungenerous though natural jealousy; and his situation became so critical, that he resolved, in 1528, to return to Castile, and answer, before no inferior tribunal, such charges as might be urged against him. He appeared with the splendour which became one who had unlocked the treasures of the New World; and his own ample fortune, contrasted with the smallness of the sum divided among his comrades, gave birth to a belief that he had not dealt fairly in the partition of the spoil. As his return to Spain put an end to all fears of his ambition, he was received with the favour which such brilliant services merited. He was invested with the order of St. Jago, the highest rank of Spanish knighthood; and the valley of Guaxaca, with an extensive domain, was erected into a marquisate in his behalf. But he could not obtain what he most desired, the supreme direction of affairs in Mexico. He returned thither in 1530 at the head of the military department, and with authority to prosecute new discoveries; but the direction of civil affairs was vested in a board, entitled the Audience of New Spain. Henceforward we may regard Cortez as a disappointed and unhappy man. Thwarted at home by the double authority