Note 896 — Chapter XXVII · RETREAT TO TLASCALA. July, 1520.

‘Yo queria,’ said Maxixcatzin, ‘yr en vuestra busca con treynta mil guerreros.’ Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 109. This is confirmed by the Aztec version of Duran, which says that the rumor of Tlascaltec preparations helped to intimidate the proposed Mexican reinforcements for Otumba. Hist. Ind., MS., ii. 483. According to Oviedo, 50,000 warriors, followed by 20,000 carriers, met the Spaniards at the frontier, iii. 514. Camargo extends the number to 200,000, ‘who came too late, but served nevertheless to check pursuit from the enemy.’ Hist. Tlax., 173. Gomara stamps Oviedo’s statement as hearsay, but adds that the Tlascaltecs declared themselves prepared to return with the Spaniards at once against Mexico. This Cortés declined to do for the present, but allowed a few soldiers to join a band in pursuit of marauding stragglers. Hist. Mex., 164. The delay in collecting the proposed reinforcements may have been due to the small faction hostile to the Spaniards, headed by the captain-general, Xicotencatl the younger, who seems never to have forgiven the disgrace of defeat which they had been the first to inflict upon him. He had accompanied the lords to Hueyotlipan, perhaps to gloat over the misfortune of his victors. According to Herrera, Captain Juan Paez—Torquemada writes Perez—was one of the invalids at Tlascala, and to him 100,000 warriors had been offered to go to the aid of his general; but he declined, on the ground that his strict orders were to remain with his 80 men at Tlascala. For this he was naturally upbraided by Cortés as a coward, fit for hanging. The story is not very probable. dec. ii. lib. x. cap. xiv,; Torquemada, i. 512.