Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/347

 thus tranquillise them. I arranged everything thus, although, had I known of the loss of the ship I had first sent and my despatches respecting the ships in the South Sea, which I had sent in her, I would have provided more exact instructions than I did.

After having despatched this ship to New Spain, and while still ill, owing to my sufferings at sea, from which I had not yet recovered, I was unable to go inland; partly, also, because I was waiting for the return of the ships from the Islands, and was occupied in settling various matters. I had sent my lieutenants here with thirty horsemen and as many foot soldiers to explore the interior; and they marched about thirty-five leagues through a very beautiful valley, where there were many and populous villages with an abundance of all kinds of native fruits, and well adapted for raising any kind of cattle, as well as for the cultivation of our Spanish agricultural products. They had no hostile encounters with the natives, but, rather, by speaking to them through our interpreter and the Indians in the neighbourhood, who were already our friends and accompanied the expedition, they succeeded in establishing peaceable relations, so that more than twenty chiefs of the principal towns visited me and offered themselves willingly as subjects and vassals of Your Majesty, promising to obey Your Royal commands, which indeed they have since done and are still doing. For up to the very day of my departure, I had some of them always with me, any one of whom on going away was immediately replaced by another who came and brought provisions for the town, and rendered every service asked of him. May it please God to confirm them in their good will, and guide them to the ends Your Majesty desires; and I have the fullest faith that it will be so; for, from so good a beginning, no bad end is to be expected, unless it be through the fault of those who are placed in command over them.