Owing To The Representations Of
Velasquez Against Cortes, He Sent Orders To Him To Seize And Make Us All
Prisoners At Every Hazard, As Rebellious Subjects.
Velasquez therefore
fitted out a fleet of nineteen ships from the Island of Cuba, in which he
embarked an
Army of fourteen hundred soldiers, eighty of whom were cavalry,
eighty musketeers, and eighty crossbow-men, with twenty pieces of cannon,
and all necessary ammunition and appointments, giving the command in chief
to Pamphilo de Narvaez. Such was his animosity against Cortes and us for
having thrown off our dependance upon him, that he made a journey of above
seventy leagues from the Havanna on purpose to expedite the preparations.
At this time, the royal audience of St Domingo and the brethren of the
order of St Jerorimo, being satisfied of our loyalty and great exertions
in the service of God and the emperor, sent over the oydor Lucas Vasquez
de Aillon to Cuba, with positive injunctions to stop the sailing of the
armament against us; but as Velasquez was confident in the support of the
bishop of Burgos, he gave no heed to the orders communicated to him by
Aillon, who therefore went along with the armament, that he might
endeavour as much as possible to prevent injury to the public service by
his mediation and influence, and be at hand if necessary, to take
possession of the country for the emperor, in virtue of his office.
Narvaez arrived safe with his whole fleet in the harbour of St Juan de
Ulua, except that he lost one small vessel during the voyage. Soon after
his arrival, the soldiers who had been sent by Cortes to that part of the
country in search of mines, went on board, and it is said gave thanks to
God for being delivered from the command of Cortes and the dangers of the
city of Mexico. Finding them in this mood, Narvaez ordered them to be
plentifully supplied with wine, to make them more communicative. Cervantes
the jester, who was one of these soldiers, under pretence of facetiousness,
exposed to him all the discontents of our soldiers respecting the
distribution of the treasure we had obtained, and informed him also of the
bad state of the garrison in Villa Rica under Sandoval. The arrival of
this new armament was soon communicated to Montezuma, who concealed the
intelligence for some time from Cortes, and opened a private
correspondence with Narvaez, to whom he sent many rich presents. Narvaez,
in his correspondence with Montezuma, said every thing that was bad
against Cortes and his troops, representing the whole of us as outcasts
and robbers, and that the emperor, hearing of our evil conduct, and that
we detained the great Montezuma in custody, had sent the present
expedition for the express purpose of liberating him and putting us all to
death. This intelligence gave great satisfaction to Montezuma, who thought
we must necessarily be all destroyed, as he had got an exact account of
their force represented to him in paintings:
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