Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/27

Rh the soldiers to pay for the clothes. arms, and other supplies obtained on credit in Cuba and from supply vessels, or to satisfy doctors and other persons clamoring for money. The remedy applied by Cortés was to appoint two able and esteemed appraisers, who determined upon the validity and amount of every claim, and on finding the debtor unable to pay granted him a respite of two years. Another measure to relieve the financial strait was to lower the standard of gold by three carats, so as to counteract the rapacity of the traders; but the latter raised their prices even more than enough to cover the difference, and the soldiers remained the losers. This gold, known as tepuzque, the native name for copper, fell more and more into discredit as unprincipled persons added to the alloy, and some years later it was withdrawn from circulation in payment of certain dues and fines. The name of tepuzque lingered in the vocabulary, however, and was applied also to persons and things having a false gloss.

Further discontent was caused by an order for the surrender of the wives and daughters of prominent Aztecs seized by the soldiers. The demand had been made by Quauhtemotzin and other leading captives, In accordance with the promises extended at the capitulation, and could hardly be ignored, though the efforts to carry out the order were reluctant enough. Many of the fair captives were hidden; others had already been reconciled to a change of lords with the aid of baubles and blandishments, and the rest were nearly all induced to declare their unwillingness to