Page:The Mastering of Mexico.djvu/373

Rh weary also of the everlasting begging for loans and advance in pay, determined to get rid of the whole imbroglio by sending the most marked troublemakers out to form settlements in those provinces which he thought eligible for settlement. He accordingly chose Sandoval to go to Tustepec, and form a colony there, and punish some Mexican garrisons for putting to death, about the time of our sorrowful retreat from Mexico, seventy-eight Spanish men and women, all of the company of Narvaez, who had attempted to form a settlement in a small town they called Medellin. Then Sandoval was to proceed to Coatzacoalcos to form a colony at its very harbor. Two other officers were to go out and conquer the province of Panuco, and others to form other colonies.

When the news spread throughout the provinces that Mexico had fallen, the governing caciques of these provinces could not believe it true, and they sent ambassadors to felicitate Cortes on his victories and to announce them as vassals of our king. But above all, the envoys were to see if it were really true that we had leveled to the ground the great city they had feared. Each of these ambassadors brought presents of gold, and many even brought their little children and showed them the ruins of Mexico, and explained it to them, just as we would