Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/344

 well as Rodrigo de Paz whom I had left in custody of my house and property; they had plundered everything and removed the alcaldes and judges whom I had appointed, putting in their places others from amongst their adherents. The letter contained many other things which are too long to repeat, as I send to Your Majesty the same original letter which contains them all.

Your Majesty may easily conceive what I felt on the reception of this news, especially when I learned that my services had been rewarded by their pillaging my house, — an unjustifiable thing, — even granting that the news of my death had been true. Even though they allege, in order to justify their conduct, that I owed seventy odd thousand pesos of gold to Your Majesty, they know full well that, on the other hand, more than one hundred and fifty thousand such were due to me, which I have spent, and not ill either, in Your Majesty's service. My first impulse in reflecting on the means to correct all this, was to embark at once, and punish so great an outrage; for, now-a-days, everyone who holds an office abroad imagines that, unless he swaggers and shows himself independent, he is no gentleman. I hear that a similar thing has just happened to Pedro Arias with a captain of his whom he sent to Nicaragua and who has recently rebelled against his authority as I will inform Your Majesty more fully hereafter. On the other hand, my soul was afflicted at the thought of leaving that country in the state and condition I would have to, because it was equivalent to allowing it to go to ruin, and I am sure that Your Majesty has received good service and that it will turn out another Culua; for I hear of large and rich provinces and great lords who live in them in much state and magnificence; especially of one, called Hueitapalan, and, in another dialect, Xucutaco, of which I have heard for six years past, and during the