and ready to lay down our lives for the service of God and his majesty; and we supplicate that his majesty will not bestow the government of so great and rich a country, which deserves to be ruled by a great prince or lord, upon any unworthy person."
Two days only after their agent had departed, a plot was formed among a few of the soldiers and sailors to seize one of the small vessels and escape to Cuba. It was discovered, two soldiers were immediately hanged, the feet of the pilot were cut off, and the sailors were given two hundred lashes each.
Foreseeing that this was but the first of what might prove a long list of desertions, Cortez came to the determination to prevent all such in the future by an act so bold and. desperate as to compel the admiration of even his enemies. After secretly advising with his pilots and some of his soldiers he resolved to destroy his ships, and thus effectually, prevent his men from leaving the enemy's country. This was done, the vessels were run on shore, the sails, anchors, rigging, etc., carefully housed in the port; and thus were five hundred men left without means of escape, in a country swarming with enemies whom they must conquer or perish in the attempt.
There is, says an English writer, "no equal to this act in history;" it stamps these adventurers as brave men, their leader as one to whom cowardice was a stranger; there was not a craven in the army.
Juan de Escalante, a valiant man, was left in charge of a small company, principally sailors converted into soldiers, who formed the garrison of the new city, while Cortez and the main army took up its march into the interior. Arrived again at Cempoalla, Cortez renewed his injunctions to the cacique to take good care of the cross and the image he had left in the temple, and recommending Escalante and
