On coming to the throne, he proclaimed a general amnesty, pardoned the rebels, and even gave some of them posts of honor. He repaired the ruin wrought by the usurper, and revived what was worth revival in the old form of government. He made a code of laws well suited to the demands of his time, which was written in blood. It was accepted by the two other powers with whom he now entered into alliances, Mexico and Tlacopan. His adjustment of the different departments of government was remarkable for the time, or indeed for any time, providing councils for every emergency; of these the most peculiar was the Council of Music, devoted to the interests of all arts and science. Its members were selected from the best instructed persons of the kingdom, without much reference to their ranks. They had the supervision of all works of art, all writings, pictorial or hieroglyphic, and had an eye on all professors to keep them up to their work. This Council of Music had sessions when it listened to poems and historical compositions recited by their authors, who received prizes according to the merit of their work. The literary men of Texcuco became celebrated throughout the country, and its archives were preserved with the greatest care in the palace. These records, which would have told us all we want to know of the early story of the people of Anahuac, were, for the most part, inscribed upon a fine fabric, made of the leaves of the American aloe, the maguey which also gave them their favorite beverage. The sheets made from it were something like the Egyptian papyrus, and furnished a smooth surface like parchment, upon which the picture-writings were laid in the most brilliant tints. These manuscripts were done up in rolls sometimes, but were often folded like a screen, and enclosed in wooden covers, not very unlike our books. Quantities of such manuscripts were stored up in the country, not only by the Texcucans, but by all the inhabitants of the different kingdoms. Probably no race has made better provision for handing down its traditions and history than these people who wandered from the mysterious North. All this is lost to us by the infatuation of the Spanish Conquistadores, as we shall see later on. As if barbarians, ignorant of types and bindings, should descend upon the British Museum or Bibliotèque Nationale, and, perceiving therein countless parallelograms of calf containing wicked little dots upon countless white leaves, should order them to be destroyed, as foolishness or blasphemy. So the first priests of the Christian religion arriving in New Spain destroyed these playthings of the idolaters, which they conceived to be probably precious, but at all events useless. Only chance specimens of these wonderful picture-writings escaped the general destruction, and from which is gleaned whatever is surmised of the earliest life of the tribes of Anahuac.