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Of Our Allies the Totonacs
103

vastly pleased and made us great promises. It were better, however, he said, to make no mention of the fifth part of the gold we had pledged to him, nor to say who were the first discoverers of the country, because, we later learned, in his own account he did not refer to Cordova and Grijalva, but reserved the discovery and the honor and glory of it all to himself. Men were not wanting among us who told him it was our bounden duty to leave nothing untold that had happened.

The ship we had prepared sailed on the 26th of July, 1519, and after a prosperous voyage arrived in Spain. Our agents waited at once on the archbishop and handed him our letters and presents, begging him to send them to the king that he might learn everything as it really had taken place. The archbishop, however, received them with harshness and answered their request in haughty tones, at last becoming so incensed that he threw one of them into prison.