HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



183 



fide of the Tepanecas, who would certainly have been 

 quickly overcome if they had not been conftantly fuppli- 

 ed with frcfli troops. The allies of the rebels fre- 

 quently fent out large bodies to make incurfions in the 

 loyal ftates, where they met with little refiftance as the 

 greatefl part of the Tezcucan force was colIe£led at 

 Quauhtitlan. Among the various difaflers which they 

 occafioned, the lord of Iztapallocan Quauhxilotl was 

 flain, who died with glory in defence of his city after 

 his return from the field of Quauhtitlan. The king of 

 Acolhuacan faw himfelf obliged, now, to divide his 

 forces, and appointed a confiderable part of the people, 

 who came from many drftant places to his afliftance, for 

 the garrifon of the cities. Tezozomoc perceiving in 

 place of the advantages which he had promifed himfelf, 

 that his troops daily diminiflied, and that his people 

 were become impatient of the fatigues and dangers of 

 war after three years of continued a£lion, demanded 

 peace, defigning to finifli, by fecret treachery, what he 

 had begun by open violence. The king of Acolhuacan, 

 although he could not rely on the faith of the Tepane- 

 can prince, neverthelefs confented, without infifting on 

 any conditions which might give him fecurity for the 

 future, as his troops were as much broken with fatigue 

 as thofe of his enemy. 



Juft as the war was concluded, or a little before its 

 termination, after a reign of twenty years, in 1409, 

 Huitzilihuitl died, having publiflied fome laws ufeful to 

 the ftate, and leaving the nobility in poffeffion of their 

 right to choofe a fucceffor. Chimalpopoca, who was 

 his brother, was accordingly chofen, and by what ap- 

 pears, from thence it became the eftabliftied law to make 

 the eleflion of one of Ac brothers of the deceafed king, 



and 



