The arrival of several vessels with men and war munitions enabled Cortes to reorganize his army, so that he was prepared to take the field again in October. The outlying Aztec strong holds were captured one by one. and the various subject tribes, ever ready to rebel against their native conquerors. gradually recovered confidence in the white men. Carpenters had been set to work at Tlnscala in constructing a fleet of small vessels, which were hauled along a canal dug for the purpose into the Mexican lake, so that it became possible to attack the city by water as well as along the causeways which connected Mexico with the land. By the end of April. 1521, with a force of over nine hundred Span iards, and eighty-seven horses, Cort5s again ap proached the capital. The city was attacked by columns along each of the three causeways from the shore, while the fleet of brigantines, with cannon, engaged the vast number of canoes on the lake. For three months the Aztecs defended their stubbornly. Street by street was taken by the Spaniards, who were obliged to tear down each .house as soon as they had stormed it., to prevent the natives from returning to the attack. At last. on August 13, the chief, Guatemozin, who had been the principal organizer of the de fense, was captured while trying to escape in a canoe, and the war ended. Cortes promptly set to work to repair the loss he had caused. The ruins of the city were used to fill in the marshy ground so as to afford a secure foundation for new edifices. Colonists were brought from Spain, and in a very short time the City of Mexico became the principal Euro pean city in America. Numerous expeditions were sent off in all directions, to Tampico, across Honduras to the Gulf Coast, and to the Pacific, where Cortes established a shipyard in which were built the vessels he used later in his ex plorations of the Pacific Coast.
Meanwhile his enemies in Cuba and Spain were planning Cortes's destruction. Officials were sent
to Mexico to investigate his acts and supersede him, but he succeeded in persuading them to return without disturbing him. In 1528, how ever, when Estrada arrived with explicit orders to take over the government, Cortes yielded with out opposition and took ship for Spain. There he was welcomed with royal honors, was created Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, the fairest domain in the New World, and was reappointed Captain-Gene•al. although not restored to the civil governorship of Mexico. He married the daughter of the of Aguilar and nieoe of the Duke of Bejar. In 1530 Cortes re turned to Mexico, where he amused him self for the next ten years with schemes for further conquests. But the civil govern ment being in other hands, he found himself constantly checked in his activity, his property detained from him, his rights interfered with, and his prestige rapidly waning. In 1536 he discovered Lower California, and explored the Pacific coasts of Mexico, lint no second t•easure trove awaited him. In 1539 Coronado secured the right to seek for the 'Seven Cities' of Marcos de Niza, and in disgust Cortes went back to com plain to the Court. He was received with honor, but could secure no substantial assistance toward recovering his rights or his property. Joining an expedition to Algiers, he was shiptrecked, losing a large part of his fortune. He then retired to a small estate near Seville, where he died, December 2, 1547. There is no good biog raphy of Cortes. Prescott's Conquest of Mexico is, so far as Cortes is coneerned,• little more than an admirer's abstract of the conqueror's official dispatches, which may lie consulted in Folsom's translation (New York, 1S43). The celebrated "Fifth Letter," describing adventurous trip across Honduras in the winter of 1524, is in the Hakluyt Society Series for 1868.