Note 656 — Chapter XXI · THE COUP DE MAÎTRE OF CORTÉS. May, 1520.

‘Debia ser alguna mala gente, y no vasallos de V. A.,’ is Cortés’ version of the reply, Cartas, 119-20, while his interpreter, Aguilar, gives it more literally as ‘una gente vizcaynos e que no los enbiava el enperador.’ Testimonio, in Cortés, Residencia, ii. 47, 184. Gomara adds that Cortés said he was going to protect Montezuma’s subjects, and to keep the strangers on the coast till he was ready to depart. The emperor probably dissimulated, ‘holgando que vnos Christianos a otros se matassen.’ Hist. Mex., 145. Forgetting that the declared purposes of Narvaez were well known in Mexico, Herrera renders the answer that this captain was a brother of Cortés, sent with a present from their king. Both would come up to the capital and then leave the country. The rumored enmity was due to an order from Spain to avenge any injury suffered at the hands of the natives, dec. ii. lib. x. cap. i. Brasseur de Bourbourg follows him.