Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 1.djvu/277

This decision and offer of the said lords, for the royal service of Your Majesty having been completed, I spoke to Montezuma one day, and told him that Your
Treasure
Collected
by the
Spaniards
Highness was in need of gold, on account of certain works ordered to be made, and I besought him to send some of his people, and I would also send some Spaniards, to the provinces and houses of those lords who had there submitted themselves, to pray them to assist Your Majesty with some part of what they had. Besides Your Highness's need, this would testify that they began to render service, and Your Highness would the more esteem their good will towards your service; and I told him that he also should give me from his treasures, as I wished to send them to Your Majesty, as I had done with the other things. He asked me afterwards to choose the Spaniards whom I wished to send, and two by two, and five by five, he distributed them through many provinces and cities, whose names I do not remember, as the papers have been lost, and also because they were many and divers; and moreover some of them were at eighty and one hundred leagues from the said great city of Temixtitan. He sent some of his people with them ordering them to go to the lords of those provinces and cities, and tell them that I had commanded each one of them to contribute a certain measure of gold which he gave them. Thus it was done, and all those lords to whom he sent gave very compliantly, as had been asked, not only in valuables, but also in bars and sheets of gold, besides all the jewels of gold, and silver, and the featherwork, and the stones, and the many other things of value which I assigned and allotted to Your Sacred Majesty, amounting to the sum of one hundred thousand ducats and more. These, besides their value, are such, and so marvellous, that for the sake of their novelty and strangeness they have no price, nor is it probable that all the