Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/161

 for executing them, they appealed that to the presence of Your Majesty, because such was advantageous to your royal service for the causes and reasons apparent in their same petition, and as will appear more fully from what passed; all of which the procurators who came from this New Spain carried, signed by a public notary. After exchanging other decrees and requirements between the said inspector and the procurators, he embarked in his ship as he was required to do, because, after publishing that he had come to be governor and captain of these parts his presence had caused some disquietude, and the people of Mexico and Temixtitan had plotted that the natives here should rebel and work a great treason, which, if it had been carried out would have been worse than the past. The plan was, that certain Indians who were in Mexico, agreeing with the natives of this province which the alguacil mayor had gone to pacify, should come to me in all haste, telling me that twenty ships had arrived on the coast with a great many people, and that, as they had not come on land, they could not be good people, and that I should come there and see what was the matter, they having prepared themselves, and going with me as warriors; and, to make me believe this, they brought me a drawing of the ships on paper. As they brought me this news secretly, I immediately divined that their intention was mischievous, and its purpose was to get me out of this province, for the chiefs of it had known all these past days that I had been prepared to march, but seeing that I remained quiet they devised this plan. I dissembled with them, and afterwards captured some who had invented the plot.

The coming of the said Tapia and his want of experience of the country and its people caused a great deal of confusion, and his remaining here would have done much harm, had not God remedied it, and he would have done better service to Your Majesty, if when he was in the