HISTORY OF THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF YUCATAN AND OF THE ITZAS

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Avendano Argues with Paredes about his Plundering. "In compliance with
the request which the two pagan Indians made me, and having placed It
before the Captain, I gained my point by giving him advice; telling him
in my remarks that he should consider that in that first public act lay
the success of the rest, so that it was of great importance for him to
carry into effect the justice which the two pagan Indians asked for;
and I asked this for many reasons, the first;--because it was the
service of God, law and reason and in conformity with the charity which
we ought to show towards our neighbors and with the good example which
in the present case we ought to set.... The next reason is, if we show
them justice, it would follow, that, even if some of them fled, they
would proclaim the good deeds of the Spaniards, and the rest of the
people of the towns which we should come to in the future, would not
run away; and if they did not flee, they would serve with me as
messengers, so that through spreading the report of the good treatment
which had been shown them, the other townspeoples would not refuse to
surrender."