This Bono had first arrived in New Spain with Narvaez, and thus he was well known to us all. After he had given each of us a hearty embrace, he desired us to call a council of the chief authorities of the town, that he might notify to them certain powers with which he was invested by his majesty, and lay before them the instructions he had received from the bishop of Burgos, from whom he brought letters for all of us. He was provided with a number of blank papers, with only the bishop's signature attached to them, which Juan Bono now filled up with the names of the regidors, accompanied by all manner of fine promises, according to the instructions he had received from the bishop; these appointments were to be presented to the proper persons mentioned therein, if we gave up possession of the country to Cristobal de Tapia. This Bono was not at all aware that Tapia had returned to St. Domingo; and the bishop had so little suspected that we should not have acknowledged the authority of Tapia, that he sent Bono after him with this commission. Among others, my name was also put down in one of these appointments, as regidor.
Bono did not disclose any part of his commission, or produce any of his papers, until we were all duly assembled in council; but as soon as he mentioned the nature of his business, we stopped any discussion on the matter, by telling him that Tapia himself had long ago left New Spain again, and we advised him to repair to Mexico, and lay his commission before Cortes.
When Bono, to his great surprise, found that Tapia had left the country, he became quite downcast, set sail the very next day for Vera Cruz, from whence he journeyed overland to Mexico. What passed between him and Cortes I do not know, but I understood that the latter supplied him with a certain sum of money to defray the expenses of his voyage back to Spain.
I could say a good deal of the numerous battles we fought, and of the great fatigues we underwent during our stay at Guacasualco, in putting down the frequent insurrections in the provinces; but it is high time I should relate something about the expedition of Alvarado to the province of Tutepec.
_How Alvarado marches to the province of Tutepec, to build a town there; and how far he succeeded in subduing the country, and in founding a colony._
