Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/236

212 them about a thousand dollars of gold, and many pieces of cotton clothing, such as they wear. They remained with me during the war and until the end of it, and well saw what the Spaniards were able to do. They knew of the treaties which were made with this province, and the allegiance given by the chiefs of all the country to the service of Your Sacred Majesty. At which, as it appeared, they showed themselves not much pleased, for they worked in many ways to embroil me with this people, saying that nothing they had told me was true, nor was the friendship they had sworn sincere, and that they formed it to secure me, in order to commit treason when they could with safety. The inhabitants of this province on the other hand, many times advised me not to trust those vassals of Montezuma, because they were traitors who carried on all their affairs with treacheries and tricks, and it was thus they had subjected all the country; and that they as my sincere friends and persons who had known them for a long time, warned me against them. I was not a little pleased to see this discord and want of conformity between the two parties, because it appeared to me to strengthen my design, and later I would find means to subjugate them; that common saying "De monte" etc., might be repeated, and I was even reminded of a scriptural authority which says "Omne regnum in seipsum divisum desolabitur." So I treated with the one, and the other, and privately I thanked both for the advice they gave me, giving to each the credit for more friendship, than to the other.

I had been in the city twenty days or more, when those lords, Montezuma's messengers, who had always remained with me, told me that I ought to go to a city about six leagues from this Tascaltecal, called Churultecal,