Ch. IV.]

HONORS CONFERRED ON HIM.

319-

regulations, especially for ameliorating the conditionof the natives, and for encouraging domestic in-dustry.

The monarch took frequent opportunity to showthe confidence which he now reposed in Cortes. Onall public occasions he appeared with him by hisside; and once, when the general lay ill of a fever,Charles paid him a visit in person, and remainedsome time in the apartment of the invalid. Thiswas an extraordinary mark of condescension in thehaughty court of Castile; and it is dwelt upon withbecoming emphasis by the historians of the time,who seem to regard it as an ample compensation forall the sufferings and services of Cortés. 23

The latter had now fairly triumphed over opposi-tion. The courtiers, with that ready instinct whichbelongs to the tribe, imitated the example of theirmaster; and even envy was silent, amidst the gen-eral homage that was paid to the man who had solately been a mark for the most envenomed calumny.Cortes, without a title, without a name but what hehad created for himself, was at once, as it were,raised to a level with the proudest nobles in theland.

He was so still more effectually by the substantialhonors which were accorded to him by his sovereignin the course of the following year. By an instru-ment, dated July 6th, 1529, the emperor raised

23 Gomara, Crónica, cap. 183. lib. 4, cap. 1.—Bernal Diaz , Hist.— Herrera, Hist. Gen., dec. 4, de la Conquista, cap. 195.

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