Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/294

270 the said ship in port, so as to get information which he would immediately bring me.

Having read this letter, I despatched two Spaniards one by one road, and the other by another, so that they might miss no messenger coming from the ship. I directed them to go to the said port, and ascertain how many ships had arrived, from whence they came, and what they brought, and to return as quickly as possible to tell me. I likewise sent another to the city of Vera Cruz, to announce what I had learned about those ships, so that they might get information there, and let me know; and another went to the Captain (whom I had sent with a hundred and fifty men, to form a settlement at the port of Quacucalco), to whom I wrote, that, as I had learned that certain ships had arrived at the port, he should stop wherever that messenger might meet him, and not proceed any further, until I should write to him again. It afterwards appeared, however, that he already knew of the arrival of the ships when he received my letter.

Fifteen days elapsed after the departure of the messengers, and as I had no news or answers from them, I was not a little alarmed. When these fifteen days had passed, other Indians, also vassals of Montezuma, arrived, from whom I learned that the said ships had already anchored in the port of San Juan, and the people had disembarked; that they had brought about eighty horses, eight hundred men, and ten or twelve pieces of artillery. All of this report was pictured on paper of the country, to be shown to Montezuma. The messengers also told me, that the Spaniard I had stationed on the coast, and the other messengers I had sent, were with the said people, and had told these Indians that the captain of those people would not allow them to return, and for them to tell me this. Having heard this, I determined to send a religious, whom I had brought in my company, bearing a letter of