B. XVII. ensure the desired object: it did not prove final; Ch. 7. but, on the contrary, formed a fresh starting-point for calamities of still deeper dye.

As on Atahuallpa's death, so on that of the Mariscal, the funeral rites due to his dignity were not forgotten. Pizarro's captains were the supInterment porters of Almagro's bier. He was interred very riscal. honourably in the Church of "Our Lady of Mercy;" and the brothers Fernando and Gonzalo Pizarro put on mourning in honour of the Mariscal of Peru.

of the Ma

As if to show how little the shedding of blood avails, the funeral rites were no sooner ended than the King's officers who had served under Almagro, namely, the Treasurer, the Contador, and the Veedor, made a formal intimation to Fernando Pizarro that the government now belonged to them, and they required him to quit that country. To this audacious requisition, which was merely reopening a question which had been settled, as Fernando Pizarro thought, he replied by seizing upon their persons, and then went out immediately to quell the mutineers under Pedro de Candia. For this purpose he took with him eighty horsemen. Many of the mutineers, when they heard the news of Almagro's death, and of Fernando's approach, fled; and the captains came out of the camp to receive Fernando Pizarro. With his usual dignified bravery, when he was within half a league of them, he left his guard behind and approached the opposite party, attended only by an Alguazil and a Notary. He then took the necessary informations, and, ascer

Revolt of Pedro de Candia's Men. 117

taining that a captain of his own, named De B. XVII. Mesa, had been the ringleader of the revolt, he Ch. 7. caused him to be immediately executed, while he Fernando sent Pedro de Candia, with some others of the the revolt principal captains, to the Marquis, his brother.

suppresses

of Pedro

de Candia's

On that same day, Fernando Pizarro busied men. himself in giving liberty to many Indian men and women, whom Pedro de Candia's people had brought as prisoners in chains; and he also provided for their return to their own lands, for which the poor Indians were very grateful, giving thanks to their gods, and praising Fernando Pizarro. He appointed Pedro de Ançurez as captain in Pedro de Candia's room; and, still fearing for the welfare of the Indians, Fernando himself accompanied the expedition, "For," as it is said, "as he went with them, they did not dare to do any mischief to the peaceable natives, nor to seize them, nor to put them in bonds." It is impossible not to give Fernando Pizarro credit for a stern sense of duty when we find him ready to offend friends and enemies alike, by acts which could only have been dictated by natural goodness of heart, or by his regard for the orders he had received from the home government, on behalf of the Indians, when he was in Spain.

Fernando Pizarro had sent the young Almagro, commonly called "Almagro el mozo," to the Marquis, who did not fail to give the young man comforting assurances respecting his father's life. After a time, the Marquis, thinking that it would be necessary for him to set affairs in order at Cusco, as Fernando Pizarro was going to Spain,

B. XVII. proceeded from Los Reyes to that city. It was Ch. 7. not until he reached the Bridge of Abançay that he heard of the condemnation and execution of Almagro. Casting down his eyes, he remained for a long time looking on the ground, and weeping. There have been writers who supposed that the Marquis had sanctioned Almagro's death; but there is no ground whatever for such a supposition, and there is no doubt that the tears shed by him for his old comrade were tears of genuine sorrow. Had he left Los Reyes earlier, the mischief would have been averted. When he reached Cusco the Marquis found both his brothers absent, as they were engaged in an important expedition amongst the Indians in the vicinity of the great lake of Titicaca. After his Fernando return from this enterprize Fernando Pizarro quitted Peru for Spain, in order to give his Majesty an account of what had taken place; but several friends of Almagro, amongst them Diego de Alvarado, to whom Almagro had committed the execution of his last wishes, had reached Spain before Fernando Pizarro. A suit was instituted against Fernando; and Diego de Alvarado challenged him to mortal combat, which was prevented by the sudden death of the challenger. Fernando Pizarro, however, was not freed from the suit. One of the principal charges against him was his having given liberty to Manco Inca, which was alleged to have been the cause of the Indian revolt.* In this matter,

Pizarro re

turns to

Spain.

*“El mas principal (y en de aver dado libertad á Mango que insistia el oficio Fiscal) era | Inga, quitandole las prisiones;

Fate of Fernando Pizarro.

119

ment of

Pizarro.

however, he was only so far to blame, that he had B. XVII. been indulgent to the Inca, and had permitted Ch. 7. him to go out of the city of Cusco to make certain sacrifices to his father. For the death of Almagro, which was the next great charge against Fernando Pizarro, his motives have been already given. Fernando Pizarro failed, however, to exculpate himself, and being deprived of the habit of Santiago, he was detained in prison at ImprisonMedina del Campo for twenty-three years. Being Fernando at last freed, he retired to his estate in the country, where he died, having attained the great of one hundred years. It was a melancholy ending for so renowned a man, and one who, to the best of his ability and understanding, had laboured largely for the Crown. Still it must be admitted that the events which followed in Peru formed a standing condemnation of the harshness of his conduct in prohibiting the appeal of Almagro to the Emperor, a harshness which in his long years of durance (how wearisome to so impatient a spirit!) he must have had ample time to understand and to regret.

age

Thus closes another act of the drama of the Conquest of Peru, which is one long tragedy, involving in a common ruin nearly all the personages concerned in it, the insignificant characters as well as the great actors in the scene.

que

dezian fue causa de todos los culares."-Varones Ilustres del levantamientos de los Indios, y Nuevo Mundo, por DON FERde aver sucedido tantas muertes, NANDO PIZARRO Y ORELLANA, y grandes gastos de los Quintos p. 338. Madrid, 1639.

de su Magestad, y de los parti

CHAPTER VIII.

B. XVII.
Ch. 8.

THE MARQUIS AND THE MEN OF CHILI-GONZALO
PIZARRO DISCOVERS THE AMAZON.

THE Marquis now remained the sole possessor of supreme authority throughout the empire of Peru. His brother Fernando, fearing lest Almagro's son should prove a centre of faction, had before his departure urged the Marquis to send the young man to Spain; but Pizarro did not listen to this prudent advice. Neither was his treatment of the conquered party judicious in other respects. Not knowing the maxim of Machiavelli, that in such cases it is better to destroy than to impoverish, Pizarro left the men of Chili in poverty and idleness, but scorned to persecute them. Finding, however, that they resorted to the house of the young Almagro, the Marquis was persuaded by his counsellors to deprive him of his Indians. The men of Chili fell into the most abject poverty; and there is a story that seven of them who messed together had only one cloak amongst the seven. And these were men who had been accustomed to command, who had known many vicissitudes of prosperity and adversity, and were not likely to accept any misfortune as if it were final. One attempt Pizarro made to aid and favour these