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96 the natives had sent to implore him for protection both against strangers and adjoining hostile tribes. An additional reason for occupying the province was the necessity for New Spain proper to control so excellent a country.

The importance of the project demanded that Cortés should undertake it in person, the more so since his leading captains were occupied elsewhere. He accordingly left Diego de Soto in charge at Mexico, with instructions for continuing the rebuilding, and set out with one hundred and twenty horse, three hundred foot-soldiers, a few field-pieces, and some forty thousand Indians from different quarters. A fair proportion of the latter were chosen Aztec warriors, whom he thought it prudent to keep under his own immediate control, rather than expose the capital to the danger of a fresh conspiracy. The quality of the allegiance accorded to the Huastecs, as the Pánuco