Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/212

204 that he and his council recognized Cortez as a master. Montezuma was soon induced to acknowledge himself a vassal of the king of Spain, and to express his desire in a public meeting of the chiefs that all his people should yield to that monarch the obedience which they

Had once paid to him. "This," wrote Cortez, "he said weeping, with more tears than it became a man to exhibit." All the chiefs present took the oath of allegiance to the Crown of Spain. A Spanish notary wrote an account of the whole transaction, which account was sent to Charles V.