Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/329

 name, I established a town called Natividad de Nuestra Señora, I delayed there to organise the settlement of it, and likewise to give orders to the captain and people in Naco concerning the measures they should take for the pacification and security of those other towns. I sent the ship I had bought to the said port of Honduras to inquire after those other people, and bring me information. By the time the above mentioned orders were executed, the ship returned, bringing the procurator of the town and an officer of the Municipal Council, who besought me earnestly to go there and relieve them, because they were in extreme need. The captain appointed by Francisco de las Casas and a judge whom he had likewise nominated, had rebelled and taken possession of a ship, then in the harbour, and had persuaded fifty out of the hundred and ten colonists to follow them, leaving the others without weapons or iron tools of any sort; taking away also almost everything they owned; so that they were in great fear either that the Indians would kill them, or that they would starve to death, for they were unable to procure provisions. A vessel from the island of Española, owned by a man called the Bachelor Francisco Moreno, had since arrived there; but, though they had besought him to provide them with necessaries he had refused, as I would more fully learn when I came to that town. To correct all this, I embarked in my ships, with all my suffering people (some of whom had meanwhile died), it being my intention to send them from that place to the Islands and to New Spain, as I afterwards did. I took with me some of my own household servants, and gave orders that twenty horsemen and ten crossbowmen should go overland, as I heard that the road to the village was good, although they would have to cross some rivers.

It took me nine days to arrive, owing to unfavourable weather, and, having cast anchor in the port of Honduras,