ABSTRACT
Don Hernan Cortes felt his authority sufficiently assured to demand from Montezuma a formal recognition of the supremacy of the Spanish emperor. Montezuma consented that his collectors should visit the principal cities and provinces, attended by a number of Spaniards, to receive the customary tributes, in the name of the Castilian sovereign. For Montezuma, whatever evils had been brought on him by the white men, held them in reverence as a race more highly gifted than his own, while for several he had conceived an attachment, flowing, from their personal attentions and deference to himself. They wished to spread its light far abroad, and to open to the people a full participation in the blessings of Christianity. A large body of Aztec artisans left the capital with the most experienced Castilian shipbuilders, and, descending to Vera Cruz, began at once to fell the timber and build a sufficient number of ships to transport the Spaniards back to their own country.
