pardon me for saying in my agony that he had taken them away; it is not true." Unable to walk he was carried to the square on an ass, and hanged.[1] What a fall was this of the haughty leader of a faction which but a few weeks before controlled the destinies of an empire! How far removed were such proceedings from those of savages? It is a singular coincidence that the representative of Cortés should have suffered the same torture for the same end as Quauhtemotzin, and have been hanged about the same time as this prince, under a similar pretext.[2]
Pedro, the brother of Paz, was seized to please Albornoz, but he escaped from prison and took refuge in the sanctuary of San Francisco, followed by a number of adherents of Cortés, such as Jorge de Alvarado and Andrés de Tapia, for none knew where the tyrants would stop, or whom they had marked for their next victim. The desire was now paramount to find Cortés if peradventure he still lived, as the only one who could save them and the country. Aware of this feeling, the governors ordered the sails of vessels at the gulf ports to be removed, so that none might go without their knowledge.[3] Efforts were made, however, to send intelligence through Guatemala, and Pedro de Alvarado was urged to come to the rescue and assume the government. The proposition fell on no heedless ears, for this leader was only too willing to figure as the savior of a country he had assisted
- ↑ 'Estuvo en piernas é desnudo é un pañio sucio tocado en la cabeza . . . todo un dia.' Memoria, loc. cit. During his imprisonment of a month and a half his property was appropriated by Salazar and Chirinos, partly to repay the gambling losses of the latter. Albornoz, who had been left as his heir, says Herrera, ubisup., with little probability, failed to receive any of the property. Villaroel claimed 12,000 pesos of it won from him at the gambling-table. Paz was evidently fortunate on the green cloth.
- ↑ Patriotic Mexicans did not fail to recognize in this occurrence, and in the spoliation of his estates, the divine vengeance for the torture and execution of the Aztec emperor by Cortés.
- ↑ Gomara writes that Casas had done a similar thing, shortly before, to prevent Salazar from sending false reports to Spain, or transmit royal moneys in his own name. Hist. Mex., 248. Bernal Diaz states something similar, and adds that it was mainly this that drew upon him the persecution of the governors. Hist. Verdad., 210.
