Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/350

 peace, having been allotted amongst the Spaniards and serving them apparently with entire good will.

At this time, there arrived at Trujillo a captain with about twenty men of those I had left at Naco, under  The Colony of Pedro Arias Gonzalo de Sandoval, and others belonging to the company of Francisco Hernandez, whom Pedro Arias de Avila, Your Majesty's governor in those parts had sent to the province of Nicaragua; I learned from them how the captain of the said Francisco Hernandez had arrived at Naco with about forty men, between horses and foot, expecting to reach the port on the bay of San Andres where he counted on finding the bachelor, Moreno, whom as I have already told Your Majesty had been sent to those parts by the audiencia residing in the island of Española. It appeared that the said bachelor had written to Francisco Hernandez inciting him to rebel against his lawful governor, just as he had acted with the people under Gil Gonzalez and Francisco de las Casas. That captain therefore had come for the purpose of concerting with him how best to throw off obedience to their governor, and offer allegiance instead to the audiencia of Española; all of which appeared from certain letters which he carried.

I immediately sent those people back with a letter to Francisco Hernandez, and particularly to some of his captains, whom I personally knew, reproving them all for their wicked doings, and explaining to them that the bachelor was deceiving them, and that Your Majesty would be displeased, besides other things which it seemed to me might serve to win them back from the false course on which they had embarked. One reason they gave to justify their conduct was that they were so distant from Pedro Arias de Avila that it was only with much difficulty and great cost that they could be provided with the common necessaries and even then sometimes not provided at all; and that they were always short of