Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/34

 sought me, on his part, to do no injury to his country nor to permit any to be done; because the people of Temixtitan were to blame for the past injuries I had sustained and not they, and they wished to be Your Majesty's vassals and my friends, as they would always preserve our friendship; and they invited us to enter the city, where by their deeds, we should recognise their sincerity. I answered, after welcoming them through the interpreters, that I rejoiced in their peace and friendship, and that, though they excused themselves for the war waged on me in the city of Temixtitan, they also well knew that in certain of their subject towns, five or six leagues from the city of Tesaico, they had killed five horsemen, forty-five of my foot-soldiers, and more than three hundred Indians of Tascaltecal, and had taken much silver, gold, and other things from them; also that, inasmuch as they could not excuse themselves from this fault, the penalty would be the restoration of our property; and that on this condition,-although they well deserved death for having killed so many Christians,I would make peace with them, since they offered it to me, but otherwise I would have to treat them with the utmost severity. They answered that the lord and chief of Temixtitan had taken all those things, but they would search for what they could, and return it to me. They asked me if I would come that day to the city, or would lodge in one of the two towns similar to suburbs, called Coatinchan and Guaxuta, which extend unbrokenly for about a league and a half from it. The latter, as it transpired afterwards, was what they wished. I told them that I would not stop until I reached the city of alliance.