FOURTH LETTER
Very High, very Powerful, and most Excellent Prince very Catholic and Invincible Emperor, King and Lord.
In the account which I sent to Your Majesty by Juan de Ribera, concerning what had happened to me in these parts after the second letter I despatched to Your Highness, I said that, in order to pacify and reduce to the royal service of Your Majesty the Provinces of Guatusco, Tuxtepeque, Quatasca, and others in the neighbourhood, which are on the South Sea and which since the revolt were in rebellion, I had sent the alguacil mayor thither with some people; I told what had happened to him on the road; and also that I had ordered him to make a settlement in those provinces and to name the town Medellin. It now remains that Your Highness should know how the said town was founded and all that country and its provinces subdued and pacified. I sent him reinforcements, and ordered him to go up the coast to the province of Guazacualco, which is fifty leagues from where that town was founded and one hundred and twenty from this city; for, when I was in this city while Montezuma was still alive, striving to discover all the secrets of these parts in order to give a full account of them to Your Majesty, I had sent thither Diego de Ordaz,[1] who resides at the Court of Your Majesty;
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- ↑ Diego de Ordaz was a native of Tierra de Campo, and first came to Mexico when he was forty years old, with Juan de Grijalba; he was a Captain of infantry under Cortes, and conducted the first ascent of Popocatepetl, for which exploit he was afterwards granted a volcano in his armorial bearings. He received the Knighthood of Santiago, and died as Governor of Maranon.
