Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/160

140 along the coast to the other side. He despatched two captains, therefore, each with one hundred men, directing that one should go to the extremity of the island from one side, and the other from the other, and that they should speak to the caciques whom they might encounter, telling them that he was waiting for them in that town and port of San Juan de Puerta Latina to speak to them on behalf of Your Majesties. He also directed that they should invite and attract them as best they could, so as to induce them to come to the said port of San Juan, and that they should do them no harm, either in their persons, or houses, or property, so as not to alarm them, nor drive them further away than they already were.

The two captains went as the Captain Fernando Cortes had ordered them, and three or four days afterwards they returned, saying that all the towns they had found were empty and bringing with them ten or twelve persons whom they had captured. Amongst these was a principal Indian to whom the said Fernando Cortes spoke in the name of Your Highnesses, through his interpreter, telling him to go and call the caciques, as he would on no account leave the Island without having seen and spoken with them. The Indian answered that he would do this, and thus he left with a letter to the said caciques, returning two days later with the principal cacique, who said that he was Lord of the Island, and had come to see for what he was wanted.

The Captain spoke to him through the interpreter, and told him that he did not wish, nor had he come to do them any harm, but in order to bring them to a knowledge of our Holy Faith, and to let them know that our rulers were the greatest Princes in the world, and that they obeyed a Greater Prince. And what the said Captain Fernando Cortes told them he wanted of them was that the caciques and Indians of the said Island should also