the latter for the present, till he had informed Cortes what had been
already done, and had received his orders as to the disposal of the
prisoners and his future procedure. Cortes, who now conferred the vacant
command of St Estevan on Sandoval, ordered all who had been any way
concerned in the murder of the Spaniards to be punished with death, as an
example to deter others from being guilty of the like offence, directing
Diego de Ocampo, as alcalde-major, to take the necessary steps against
them, with orders to execute all who should be found guilty. He gave
orders likewise to conciliate the natives by all possible means, and to
prevent the soldiers of Garay from committing any future outrages. Two
days after the receipt of these orders, the accused caciques were brought
to trial; and many of them being found guilty by evidence, or by their own
confession, were publickly executed, some being burnt and others hanged.
Many also were pardoned; and all the districts which had belonged to the
caciques who suffered on this occasion, were restored to their children or
other heirs. Ocampo now proceeded against all those Spaniards who had been
guilty of outrages, going about the country in bands, plundering and
murdering the natives, or who had invited other soldiers to desert to them;
and having collected them together, he shipped them off for Cuba. To Juan
de Grijalva, who had been commodore of the fleet under Garay, Cortes
offered the alternative of a present of 2000 crowns, and a passage to Cuba,
or an honourable reception at Mexico. But Grijalva and all the other
officers belonging to Garay preferred going to Cuba. When Sandoval and
Ocampo had thus reduced the settlement to order, and cleared it of these
troublesome inmates, they returned to Mexico, leaving the command at St
Estevan to an officer named Vallecillo; and on their arrival at the
capital, they were received by Cortes and others with the distinction
which their services richly merited[2].