means of liberal bounties and seductive promises to some, while the unwilling were forced to enlist or to send substitutes, Guzman succeeded in recruiting a sufficient number of men in Guatemala, Oajaca, and elsewhere. He filled his military chest by seizure of funds belonging to the crown, an act involving a constructive arrest of the treasury officials who opposed him,[1] and the extortion of forced loans from the wealthy of the city, though this was forbidden by law. Preparations for the campaign though hasty were thorough, and greatly facilitated because of the almost omnipotent power enjoyed by the president, and just before Christmas[2] he hastened to his usual pleasant pastime in fresh fields at the head of the largest and best equipped army that as yet had marched under the royal banner in the New World, consisting as it did of two hundred horse, three hundred foot soldiers, and some artillerymen with twelve guns, together with at least ten thousand Tlascaltecs and Mexicans.[3] Two chaplains, joined afterward by two others, accompanied the force, and Guzman took with him the unfortunate Caltzontzin, who, after having been forced to minister to the avarice of his Jailer, was so soon to become his victim.[4]
- ↑ This amount was 6,000 pesos de oro. The second audiencia was instructed (see Puga, Cedulario, 45) to collect this amount from Guzman, or failing this, from the property of the royal officials who had given it without authority.
- ↑ Pilar, 248, writes 22d, while Mota Padilla makes the date early in November.
- ↑ These figures are but approximate, hardly two authorities being in accord. Guzman's own estimate, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiii. 294, 356-93, and in Ramusio, ii. 331, is the lowest, and gives 150 horsemen, as many footmen, and from 7,000 to 8,000 auxiliaries. According to Torquemada, i. 348, and Villa Señor, Theatro, i. 203-4, there were 250 of the former and twice that number of the latter. Viceroy Mendoza, in a letter to Charles V., speaks of 400 Spaniards and 14,000 natives. Herrera, dec. iv. lib. viii. cap. 1., estimates the natives at 8,000, excluding carriers and those obtained later in Michoacan. Frejes, Hist. Breve, 69, says there were 800 Spanish soldiers. Fuenleal complains of the loss to the settlements of this withdrawal of men, and urges more stringent laws against such operations. Carta, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xiii. 215-16.
- ↑ Garcia del Pilar, the conquistador and interpreter, who had suggested to Guzman the ingenious plan of inviting the caciques to Mexico that they might be robbed, says, Relacion, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., ii. 248, that Caltzontzin welcomed the president to his capital, that he complied with a requisition for
