me, fearing that they might be taken on board the ships as had happened to certain of their people who had been captured by the first Christians who came there. I told them what grief that event had caused me, and that they might be sure such an outrage would not again happen, for I would send for those who had been carried off and have them returned.
May God grant that the lawyers at Española will not make me forfeit my word to those Indians, though I greatly fear they will not send them back to me, but will rather seek some way to exculpate the bachelor, Moreno, who captured them; for I do not believe that he acted otherwise than according to what they instructed and ordered him.
In answer to the question of those messengers respecting my purpose in coming to that country, I said that they should know how, about eight years before, I had arrived in the province of Culua where Montezuma then ruled the great city of Temixtitan, and all of that country; being informed by me of the greatness and power of Your Majesty, to whom the universal world was subject, and of my having been sent to visit his country in the royal name of Your Excellency, he immediately received me very kindly and recognised what he owed to Your greatness; and that all the other lords in the country had done the same. I recounted to them other things regarding this matter which had happened to me here, and that I was ordered by Your Majesty to see and visit all these countries without exception, and to establish towns of Christians in them, who would teach the people the best way to live, not only for the provision of their persons and property, but also for the salvation of their souls, and that this was the cause of my coming; that they might be sure that no mischief would follow from it, but a great deal of good, for those who obeyed the royal mandates of Your Majesty would be well
