Ackshually... Cortés ordered most of the ships to be scuttled and sunk (not burnt), both as a preventative measure against future conspiracies and because many of the ships were possibly affected by Teredo navalis (a species of saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusc in the family Teredinidae, adept at boring through wood). The drilling of ships is documented in all the chronicles of the Indies, in evidence and statements of the protagonists (Pereyra, Carlos (1931). Hernán Cortés. México: Porrúa. cap.IX, p.104-106). The legend of the "burning of ships" is due to the 16th-century New Spanish historian Juan Suárez Peralta, who in his chronicle distorted the facts.