Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/389

Rh The authorities at Mexico clearly saw the futility of discountenancing the acts and attitude of Nuño de Guzman. Indeed, with the forces at his command, he could afford to bid defiance even to armed opponents, as he stood prepared to do. Cortés had naturally objected to the advantage taken by Guzman of his Discoveries and plans for conquest, but this could no longer be remedied, and all he might do was to take possession for New Spain of the districts actually subjugated by his lieutenants, and at the same time afford an opening as settlers to a number of the needy adherents who had followed him from Spain. While taught by his own acts in similar cases, and by the trickery of others, he allowed himself nevertheless to suppose that the authority of sovereign and audiencia would be sufficient to obtain respect for the claim. In this belief, as captain-general, he commissioned Luis de Castilla, a knight of Santiago, of noble family, to proceed with a hundred men to settle and rule the country bordered on the north by Rio Tololotlan.

Castilla approached Jalisco from the south at the same time that Guzman returned toward it from the north. Informed of the presence of a rival, the latter hastened to install a municipality at Compostela, as capital of the district, and to let the intimation reach Castilla that he had been anticipated. Luis replied that he came in the name of his Majesty, and must take possession. (Guzman was by no means prepared either to yield or to shed the blood of officers armed with a royal commission; yet peradventure he might capture him. To this end artifice alone was left to him; so he sent a message full of bland assurances,