One of them was the "San Pelayo," with Menendez on board. Mendoza
informs us, that in the evening the officers came on board the ship to
which he was attached, when he, the chaplain, regaled them with
sweetmeats, and that Menendez invited him not only to supper that night,
but to dinner the next day, "for the which I thanked him, as reason
was," says the gratified churchman.
Here thirty men deserted, and three priests also ran off, of which
Mendoza bitterly complains, as increasing his own work. The motives of
the clerical truants may perhaps be inferred from a worldly temptation
to which the chaplain himself was subjected. "I was offered the service
of a chapel where I should have got a peso for every mass I said, the
whole year round; but I did not accept it, for fear that what I hear
said of the other three would be said of me. Besides, it is not a place
where one can hope for any great advancement, and I wished to try
whether, in refusing a benefice for the love of the Lord, He will not
repay me with some other stroke of fortune before the end of the voyage;
for it is my aim to serve God and His blessed Mother."
The original design had been to rendezvous at Havana, but with the
Adelantado the advantages of despatch outweighed every other
consideration.
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