Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/267

 of those parts must abstain from this custom, and that I had punished that man with death because he had slain and eaten a fellow creature, for I wished that none should be killed, but that, on the contrary, I came by order of Your Majesty to protect their lives as well as their property and to teach them that they were to adore but one God, who is in the heavens, Creator and Maker of all things, through whom all creatures live and are governed; and that they must turn from their idols, and the rites they had practised until then, for these were lies and deceptions which the devil, the enemy of the human race, had invented for deceiving them and to bring them to eternal damnation, where great and frightful torments awaited them; being thus deprived of the knowledge of God they could not be saved nor come into the enjoyment of glorious and eternal beatitude, which God had promised and has prepared for them who believe in Him; all of which the devil through his malice and evil doings had lost. I, likewise, had come to teach them that Your Majesty, by the will of Divine Providence, rules the universe, and that they also must submit themselves to the imperial yoke, and do all that we who are Your Majesty's ministers here might order them in Your Royal name; for, acting thus, they would be favoured and maintained in justice, and their lives and properties protected, but that, acting otherwise, they would be proceeded against and punished according to justice. I told them many things concerning these matters which, as they were lengthy, I do not repeat to Your Majesty.

The chief showed much satisfaction, and sent some of his people to bring provisions, and I gave him some presents from Spain, which he admired very much; and all the time he remained with me he was very contented. He ordered a road to be opened to another town, called Tatahuitalpan, five leagues up the