Part 41 (1/2)
Naharro, Relacion Sumaria, Ms. - Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms. - Carta de Gutierrez, Ms. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Carta de Espinall, Ms.]
Having completed the process, (July 8th, 1538,) it was not difficult to obtain a verdict against the prisoner. The princ.i.p.al charges on which he was p.r.o.nounced guilty were those of levying war against the Crown, and thereby occasioning the death of many of his Majesty's subjects; of entering into conspiracy with the Inca; and finally, of dispossessing the royal governor of the city of Cuzco. On these charges he was condemned to suffer death as a traitor, by being publicly beheaded in the great square of the city. Who were the judges, or what was the tribunal that condemned him, we are not informed. Indeed, the whole trial was a mockery; if that can be called a trial, where the accused himself is not even aware of the accusation.
The sentence was communicated by a friar deputed for the purpose to Almagro. The unhappy man, who all the while had been unconsciously slumbering on the brink of a precipice, could not at first comprehend the nature of his situation. Recovering from the first shock, ”It was impossible,” he said, ”that such wrong could be done him, - he would not believe it.” He then besought Hernando Pizarro to grant him an interview. That cavalier, not unwilling, it would seem, to witness the agony of his captive, consented; and Almagro was so humbled by his misfortunes, that he condescended to beg for his life with the most piteous supplications. He reminded Hernando of his ancient relations with his brother, and the good offices he had rendered him and his family in the earlier part of their career. He touched on his acknowledged services to his country, and besought his enemy ”to spare his gray hairs, and not to deprive him of the sh.o.r.e remnant of an existence from which he had now nothing more to fear.” - To this the other coldly replied, that ”he was surprised to see Almagro demean himself in a manner so unbecoming a brave cavalier; that his fate was no worse than had befallen many a soldier before him; and that, since G.o.d had given him the grace to be a Christian, he should employ his remaining moments in making up his account with Heaven!” *19 [Footnote 19: ”I que pues tuvo tanta gracia de Dios, que le hico Christiano, ordenase su Alma, i temiese a Dios.” Herrera, Hist.
General, dec. 6, lib. 5, cap. 1.]
But Almagro was not to be silenced. He urged the service he had rendered Hernando himself. ”This was a hard requital,” he said, ”for having spared his life so recently under similar circ.u.mstances, and that, too, when he had been urged again and again by those around him to take it away.” And he concluded by menacing his enemy with the vengeance of the emperor, who would never suffer this outrage on one who had rendered such signal services to the Crown to go unrequited. It was all in vain; and Hernando abruptly closed the conference by repeating, that ”his doom was inevitable, and he must prepare to meet it.” *20 [Footnote 20: Ibid., ubi supra.
The marshal appealed from the sentence of his judges to the Crown, supplicating his conqueror, (says the treasurer Espinall, in his letter to the emperor,) in terms that would have touched the heart of an infidel. ”De la qual el dicho Adelantado apelo para ante V. M. i le rogo que por amor de Dios hincado de rodillas le otorgase el apelacion, diciendole que mirase sus canas e vejez e quanto havia servido a V. M. i qe el havia sido el primer escalon para que el 1 sus hermanos subiesen en el estado en que estavan, i diciendole otras muchas palabras de dolor e compasion que despues de muerto supe que dixo, que a qualquier hombre, aunque fuera infiel, moviera a piedad.” Carta, Ms.]
Almagro, finding that no impression was to be made on his iron-hearted conqueror, now seriously addressed himself to the settlement of his affairs. By the terms of the royal grant he was empowered to name his successor. He accordingly devolved his office on his son, appointing Diego de Alvarado, on whose integrity he had great reliance, administrator of the province during his minority. All his property and possessions in Peru, of whatever kind, he devised to his master the emperor, a.s.suring him that a large balance was still due to him in his unsettled accounts with Pizarro. By this politic bequest, he hoped to secure the monarch's protection for his son, as well as a strict scrutiny into the affairs of his enemy.
The knowledge of Almagro's sentence produced a deep sensation in the community of Cuzco. All were amazed at the presumption with which one, armed with a little brief authority, ventured to sit in judgment on a person of Almagro's station. There were few who did not call to mind some generous or good-natured act of the unfortunate veteran. Even those who had furnished materials for the accusation, now startled by the tragic result to which it was to lead, were heard to denounce Hernando's conduct as that of a tyrant. Some of the princ.i.p.al cavaliers, and among them Diego de Alvarado, to whose intercession, as we have seen Hernando Pizarro, when a captive, had owed his own life, waited on that commander, and endeavoured to dissuade him from so high-handed and atrocious a proceeding. It was in vain. But it had the effect of changing the mode of execution, which, instead of the public square, was now to take place in prison. *21
[Footnote 21: Carta de Espinall, Ms. - Montesinos, Annales, Ms., ano 1538.
Bishop Valverde, as he a.s.sures the emperor, remonstrated with Francisco Pizarro in Lima, against allowing violence towards the marshal; urging it on him, as an imperative duty, to go himself at once to Cuzco, and set him at liberty. ”It was too grave a matter,” he rightly added, ”to trust to a third party.” (Carta al Emperador, Ms.) The treasurer Espinall, then in Cuzco, made a similar ineffectual attempt to turn Hernando from his purpose.]
On the day appointed, a strong corps of arquebusiers was drawn up in the plaza. The guards were doubled over the houses were dwelt the princ.i.p.al partisans of Almagro. The executioner, attended by a priest, stealthily entered his prison; and the unhappy man, after confessing and receiving the sacrament, submitted without resistance to the garrote. Thus obscurely, in the gloomy silence of a dungeon, perished the hero of a hundred battles! His corpse was removed to the great square of the city, where, in obedience to the sentence, the head was severed from the body. A herald proclaimed aloud the nature of the crimes for which he had suffered; and his remains, rolled in their b.l.o.o.d.y shroud, were borne to the house of his friend Hernan Ponce de Leon, and the next day laid with all due solemnity in the church of Our Lady of Mercy. The Pizarros appeared among the princ.i.p.al mourners. It was remarked, that their brother had paid similar honors to the memory of Atahuallpa. *22 [Footnote 22: Carta de Espinall, Ms. - Herrera, Hist. General, loc. cit. - Carta de Valverde al Emperador, Ms. - Carta de Gutierrez, Ms. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Montesinos, Annales, Ms., ano 1538.
The date of Almagro's execution is not given; a strange omission; but of little moment, as that event must have followed soon on the condemnation.]
Almagro, at the time of his death, was probably not far from seventy years of age. But this is somewhat uncertain; for Almagro was a foundling, and his early history is lost in obscurity. *23 He had many excellent qualities by nature; and his defects, which were not few, may reasonably be palliated by the circ.u.mstances of his situation. For what extenuation is not authorized by the position of a foundling, - without parents, or early friends, or teacher to direct him, - his little bark set adrift on the ocean of life, to take its chance among the rude billows and breakers, without one friendly hand stretched forth to steer or to save it! The name of ”foundling” comprehends an apology for much, very much, that is wrong in after life. *24
[Footnote 23: Ante, vol. I. p. 207.]
[Footnote 24: Montesinos, for want of a better pedigree, says, - ”He was the son of his own great deeds, and such has been the parentage of many a famous hero!” (Annales, Ms., ano 1538.) It would go hard with a Castilian, if he could not make out something like a genealogy, - however shadowy.]
He was a man of strong pa.s.sions, and not too well used to control them. *25 But he was neither vindictive nor habitually cruel. I have mentioned one atrocious outrage which he committed on the natives. But insensibility to the rights of the Indian he shared with many a better-instructed Spaniard. Yet the Indians, after his conviction, bore testimony to his general humanity, by declaring that they had no such friend among the white men. *26 Indeed, far from being vindictive, he was placable, and easily yielded to others. The facility with which he yielded, the result of good-natured credulity, made him too often the dupe of the crafty; and it showed, certainly, a want of that self-reliance which belongs to great strength of character. Yet his facility of temper, and the generosity of his nature, made him popular with his followers. No commander was ever more beloved by his soldiers. His generosity was often carried to prodigality. When he entered on the campaign of Chili, he lent a hundred thousand gold ducats to the poorer cavaliers to equip themselves, and afterwards gave them up the debt. *27 He was profuse to ostentation. But his extravagance did him no harm among the roving spirits of the camp, with whom prodigality is apt to gain more favor than a strict and well-regulated economy.
[Footnote 25: ”Hera vn hombre muy profano, de muy mala lengua, que en enojandose tratava muy mal a todos los que con el andavan aunque fuesen cavalleros. ”(Descub. y Conq., Ms.) It is the portrait drawn by an enemy.]
[Footnote 26: ”Los Indios lloraban amargamente, diciendo, que de el nunca recibieron mal tratamiento.” Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 6, lib. 5, cap. 1.]
[Footnote 27: If we may credit Herrera, he distributed a hundred and eighty roads of silver and twenty of gold among his followers! ”Mando sacar de su Posada mas de ciento i ochenta cargas de Plata i veinte de Oro, i las repartio.” (Dec. 5, lib.
7, cap. 9.) A load was what a man could easily carry. Such a statement taxes our credulity, but it is difficult to set the proper limits to one's credulity, in what relates to this land of gold.]
He was a good soldier, careful and judicious in his plans, patient and intrepid in their execution. His body was covered with the scars of his battles, till the natural plainness of his person was converted almost into deformity. He must not be judged by his closing campaign, when, depressed by disease, he yielded to the superior genius of his rival; but by his numerous expeditions by land and by water for the conquest of Peru and the remote Chili. Yet it may be doubted whether he possessed those uncommon qualities, either as a warrior or as a man, that, in ordinary circ.u.mstances, would have raised him to distinction. He was one of the three, or, to speak more strictly, of the two a.s.sociates, who had the good fortune and the glory to make one of the most splendid discoveries in the Western World. He shares largely in the credit of this with Pizarro; for, when he did not accompany that leader in his perilous expeditions, he contributed no less to their success by his exertions in the colonies.
Yet his connection with that chief can hardly be considered a fortunate circ.u.mstance in his career. A partners.h.i.+p between individuals for discovery and conquest is not likely to be very scrupulously observed, especially by men more accustomed to govern others than to govern themselves. If causes for discord do not arise before, they will be sure to spring up on division of the spoil. But this a.s.sociation was particularly ill-a.s.sorted. For the free, sanguine, and confiding temper of Almagro was no match for the cool and crafty policy of Pizarro; and he was invariably circ.u.mvented by his companion, whenever their respective interests came in collision.
Still the final ruin of Almagro may be fairly imputed to himself.
He made two capital blunders. The first was his appeal to arms by the seizure of Cuzco. The determination of a boundary-line was not to be settled by arms. It was a subject for arbitration; and, if arbitrators could not be trusted, it should have been referred to the decision of the Crown. But, having once appealed to arms, he should not then have resorted to negotiation, - above all, to negotiation with Pizarro. This was his second and greatest error. He had seen enough of Pizarro to know that he was not to be trusted. Almagro did trust him, and he paid for it with his life.
Chapter III
Pizarro Revisits Cuzco. - Hernando Returns To Castile. - His long Imprisonment. - Commissioner Sent To Peru. - Hostilities With The Inca. -Pizarro's Active Administration. - Gonzalo Pizarro.
1539-1540.
On the departure of his brother in pursuit of Almagro, the Marquess Francisco Pizarro, as we have seen, returned to Lima.
There he anxiously awaited the result of the campaign; and on receiving the welcome tidings of the victory of Las Salinas, he instantly made preparations for his march to Cuzco. At Xauxa, however, he was long detained by the distracted state of the country, and still longer, as it would seem, by a reluctance to enter the Peruvian capital while the trial of Almagro was pending.
He was met at Xauxa by the marshal's son Diego, who had been sent to the coast by Hernando Pizarro. The young man was filled with the most gloomy apprehensions respecting his father's fate, and he besought the governor not to allow his brother to do him any violence. Pizarro, who received Diego with much apparent kindness, bade him take heart, as no harm should come to his father; *1 adding, that he trusted their ancient friends.h.i.+p would soon be renewed. The youth, comforted by these a.s.surances, took his way to Lima, where, by Pizarro's orders, he was received into his house, and treated as a son.
[Footnote 1: ”I dixo, que no tuviese ninguna pena, porque no consentiria, que su Padre fuese muerto.” Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 6, lib. 6, cap. 3.]