The English-American : a new survey of the West Indies, 1648 / Thomas Gage ; edited with an introduction by A.P. Newton.

  • Thomas Gage
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The English-American : a new survey of the West Indies, 1648 / Thomas Gage ; edited with an introduction by A.P. Newton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Indians; and his court at Texcoco was as great or greater than Montezuma’s formerly had been at Mexico. And here Cortez made his preparation for the siege of Mexico with all hable, and furnished himself with scaling ladders and other necessaries fit for such a purpose. His brigantines [vergantines] being nailed and thoroughly ended, he made a sluice, or trench, of half a league of length, twelve foot broad and more, and two fathom in depth. This work was fifty days a doing, although there were four hundred thousand men daily working; truly a famous work and worthy of memory, which hath made Texcoco gloriously mentioned, though now almost decayed in the great number of inhabitants. The dock or trench being thus finished, the brigantines were caulked with tow and cotton-wool, and for want of tallow and oil they were (as some authors report) driven to take man’s grease, not that Cortez permitted them to slay men for that effebt, but of those which were slain in the wars, and of such as sallied daily out of Mexico to hinder this work, and fighting were slain. The Indians, who were cruel and bloody butchers, using sacrifice of man’s flesh, would in this sort open the dead body and take out the grease. The brigantines being launched, Cortez mustered his men, and found nine hundred Spaniards, of the which were fourscore and six horsemen, and a hundred and eighteen with cross-bows, and harquebuses [hargabushes]; and all the residue had sundry weapons, as swords, daggers, targets, lances, and halberds. Also they had for armour, corslets, coats of mail, and jacks. They had moreover three great pieces of cabt iron, fifteen small pieces of brass, and ten hundred-weight of powder, with btore of shot, besides a hundred thousand Indians, men of war. On Whit-Sunday all the Spaniards came into the field, that great plain below the high mountain spoken of before, where Cortez made three chief captains, among whom he divided his whole
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