168 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



take it, which was for the mofl part the rebellion of 

 fome city or province, the putting to death unlawfully 

 fome Mexican, Acolhuan, or Tepanecan couriers, or mer- 

 chants, or fome grofs infiilt offered to their ambaffadors. 

 If the rebellion originated in fome of the chiefs, and not 

 among the people, the guilty perfons were conducted to 

 the capital and punifhed. But if the people were alfo in 

 fault, fatisfaction was demanded from them in the name 

 of the king. If they fubmitted, and manifefled a fincere 

 repentance, their crime was pardoned, and they were 

 advifed to better conduct ; but if, inftead of fubmiffion, 

 they anfwered with arrogance, and perfifled in denying 

 the fatisfa&ion demanded, or offered any new infult to, 

 the meffengers which were fent to them, the affair was 

 difcuffed in the council, and if war was refolved upon, 

 proper orders were given to the generals. Sometimes 

 the kings, in order to juftify their conduct more fully 

 before they made war upon any flate or place, fent three 

 different embaffies ; the firft to the lord of the flate which 

 had given offence, requiring from him a fuitable fatisfac- 

 tion, and alfo prefcribing a time for the fame, on pain of 

 being treated as an enemy ; the fecond, to the nobles, 

 that they might perfuade their lord to make a fubmiffi- 

 on, and efcape the punifhment which threatened him ; 

 and the third to the people, in order to make them ac- 

 quainted with the occafion of the war ; and very often, 

 as a certain hiflorian afferts, the arguments made ufe 

 of by the ambaffadors were fo powerful, and the 

 advantages of peace, and the diftreffes of war, were fo 

 forcibly reprefented, that an accommodation took place 

 between the parties. They ufed alfo to fend along with 

 ambaffadors the idol of Huitzilopochtli, enjoining the 

 people who were ftirring up a war to give it a place 



, among 



