Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/24

 in case they did not submit peaceably, I sent a captain with twenty horsemen and two hundred foot soldiers, ordering him, on the part of Your Majesty, to require the natives of those provinces to submit peaceably as vassals of Your Majesty, as they had done heretofore, and to use all possible moderation with them; but, if they would not receive him peaceably, to make war on them. I told him when he had done that, and quieted these two provinces, to return with his men to Tascaltecal, where I would wait for him. He left in the beginning of the month of December 1520, and pursued his road to those provinces which were about twenty leagues distant.

Having despatched this business, Very Powerful Lord, I left Segura de la Frontera, in the province of Tepeaca,  Departure from Tepeaca at mid-December of that year, placing a captain with sixty men there because the natives besought me greatly to do so; and I sent all my people on foot to the city of Tascaltecal, where the brigantines were being built, which is nine or ten leagues from Tepeaca, while I with twenty horsemen went that day to sleep in the city of Cholula. The inhabitants desired my coming on account of the sickness of small-pox, which also affected the natives of these countries, and those of the islands. Many of their caciques having died from it, they desired that by my action, and with their approval, others should be appointed in their places. We were very well received by them on our arrival, and, having finished this business to their satisfaction in the manner I have stated, and having explained to them my purpose to make war on the province of Mexico and Temixtitan, I besought them, that, inasmuch as they were vassals of Your Majesty, they should stand firm in their friendship with us, as we would with them till death. I besought them also to aid me