Page:Vol 1 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/670

550 Pánuco," while the remainder of the interior was on the sure way to reduction, under the able leadership of Cortés, whose valor and energy they praised.

They prayed that he, the beloved of all the troops, might be confirmed in the office of captain-general, as the only man whose genius and experience could be relied on to carry out and maintain the conquest. The natives being docile and ready to receive conversion, friars should be sent to secure this harvest for the church, and also to administer to the spiritual wants of the Spaniards. Colonists were needed; also horses, and other live-stock — the latter to be paid for at a future time — in order to secure the country and develop its wealth.

With these letters went one from the army, which, recounting but briefly the leading incidents of the campaigns, had for its main object to decry Narvaez and Velazquez as the sole cause of all the disasters that had occurred in the country, and to praise Cortés as a noble, loyal, and able man, by whom alone the