As for honor, integrity, and all those virtues which go to make a man, we must not expect them in princes or in politicians; yet we may safely say that in all the generous qualities of mind and heart the Aztec monarch was no whit behind contemporary European rulers.
From all which it is safe to say that Montezuma, though most magnificent and lordly among his lords, was not popular with the masses, and his position at this juncture was not of the safest.
His extravagance exceeded all bounds; his continuous wars were expensive; and to meet the heavy draughts upon the treasury required excessive taxation. This was made to weigh with special heaviness on the subjugated provinces, on which likewise was laid with peculiar aggravation the horrible burden of furnishing victims for human sacrifices.
The successful resistance to his arms of several states enclosed by his conquests, or bordering on his domain, caused him no small unhappiness. There was the little republic of Tlascala, on the very border of the Mexican valley, which often he had tried to conquer, and failed. Then there was the Tarascan kingdom of Michoacan, on the western side, whose people boasted as high a culture as any of the lake region, which stood firm against all efforts of the confederation.
With nations beyond their border little intercourse existed, yet Aztec traders, likewise playing spies, were often as far south as Nicaragua, and along the coasts of Honduras and Yucatan. There is no doubt, therefore, that the presence in those parts of the Spaniards was known to Montezuma from the first. It might have been like a voice from behind the clouds, the reports of Columbus and Pinzon, but the appearing of Córdoba and Grijalva, who talked and drew blood, was something more tangible.