History of the Conquest of Peru Part 61

[Footnote 30: Ms. de Caravantes. - Gomara, Hist. de las Indians, cap. 187. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 2, cap.

93-95. - Zarate. Conq. del Peru, lib. 7, cap. 10.]

Gasca had been now more than fifteen months in Lima and nearly three years had elapsed since his first entrance into Peru. In that time, he had accomplished the great objects of his mission.

When he landed, he found the colony in a state of anarchy, or rather organized rebellion under a powerful and popular chief.

He came without funds or forces to support him. The former he procured through the credit which he established in his good faith; the latter he won over by argument and persuasion from the very persons to whom they had been confided by his rival. Thus he turned the arms of that rival against himself. By a calm appeal to reason he wrought a change in the hearts of the people; and, without costing a drop of blood to a single loyal subject, he suppressed a rebellion which had menaced Spain with the loss of the wealthiest of her provinces. He had punished the guilty, and in their spoils found the means to recompense the faithful.

He had, moreover, so well husbanded the resources of the country, that he was enabled to pay off the large loan he had negotiated with the merchants of the colony, for the expenses of the war, exceeding nine hundred thousand pesos de oro. *31 Nay, more, by his economy he had saved a million and a half of ducats for the government, which for some years had received nothing from Peru; and he now proposed to carry back this acceptable treasure to swell the royal coffers. *32 All this had been accomplished without the cost of outfit or salary, or any charge to the Crown except that of his own frugal expenditure. *33 The country was now in a state of tranquillity Gasca felt that his work was done; and that he was free to gratify his natural longing to return to his native land.

[Footnote 31: "Recogio tanta sema de dinero, que pago novecientos mil pesos de Oro, que se hallo haver gastado, desde el Dia que entro en Panama, hasta que se acabo la Guerra, los quales tomo prestados." Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 8, lib. 5, cap. 7. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 7, cap. 10.]

[Footnote 32: "Aviendo pagado el Presidente las costas de la guerra que fueron muchas, remitio a S. M y lo llevo consigo 264,422 marcos de plata, que a seis ducados valieron 1 millon 588,332 ducados" Ms. de Caravantes.]

[Footnote 33: "No tubo ni quiso salario el Presidente Gasca sino cedula para que a un mayordomo suyo diosen los Oficiales reales lo necesario de la real Hacienda, que como pareze de los quadernos de su gasto fue muy moderado." (Ms. de Caravantes.) Gasca, it appears, was most exact in keeping the accounts of his disburs.e.m.e.nts for the expenses of himself and household, from the time he embarked for the colonies.]

Before his departure, he arranged a distribution of those repartimientos which had lapsed to the Crown during the past year by the death of the inc.u.mbents. Life was short in Peru; since those who lived by the sword, if they did not die by the sword, too often fell early victims to the hards.h.i.+ps incident to their adventurous career. Many were the applicants for the new bounty of government; and, as among them were some of those who had been discontented with the former part.i.tion, Gasca was a.s.sailed by remonstrances, and sometimes by reproaches couched in no very decorous or respectful language. But they had no power to disturb his equanimity; he patiently listened, and replied to all in the mild tone of expostulation best calculated to turn away wrath; "by this victory over himself," says an old writer, "acquiring more real glory, than by all his victories over his enemies." *34

[Footnote 34: "En lo qual hizo mas que en vencer y ganar todo aquel Ympe rio: porque fue vencerse a.s.si proprio." Garcila.s.so, Com. Real Parte 2, lib. 6, cap. 7.]

An incident occurred on the eve of his departure, touching in itself, and honorable to the parties concerned. The Indian caciques of the neighbouring country, mindful of the great benefits he had rendered their people, presented him with a considerable quant.i.ty of plate in token of their grat.i.tude. But Gasca refused to receive it, though in doing so he gave much concern to the Peruvians who feared they had unwittingly fallen under his displeasure.

Many of the princ.i.p.al colonists, also, from the same wish to show their sense of his important services, sent to him, after he had embarked, a magnificent donative of fifty thousand gold castellanos. "As he had taken leave of Peru," they said, "there could be no longer any ground for declining it." But Gasca was as decided in his rejection of this present, as he had been of the other. "He had come to the country," he remarked, "to serve the king, and to secure the blessings of peace to the inhabitants; and now that, by the favor of Heaven, he had been permitted to accomplish this, he would not dishonor the cause by any act that might throw suspicion on the purity of his motives."

Notwithstanding his refusal, the colonists contrived to secrete the sum of twenty thousand castellanos on board of his vessel, with the idea, that, once in his own country, with his mission concluded, the president's scruples would be removed. Gasca did, indeed, accept the donative; for he felt that it would be ungracious to send it back; but it was only till he could ascertain the relatives of the donors, when he distributed it among the most needy. *35

[Footnote 35: Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 2, cap.

95.]

Having now settled all his affairs, the president committed the government, until the arrival of a viceroy, to his faithful partners of the Royal Audience, and in January, 1150, he embarked with the royal treasure on board of a squadron for Panama. He was accompanied to the sh.o.r.e by a numerous crowd of the inhabitants, cavaliers and common people, persons of all ages and conditions, who followed to take their last look of their benefactor, and watch with straining eyes the vessel that bore him away from their land.

His voyage was prosperous, and early in March the president reached his destined port. He stayed there only till he could muster horses and mules sufficient to carry the treasure across the mountains; for he knew that this part of the country abounded in wild, predatory spirits, who would be sorely tempted to some act of violence by a knowledge of the wealth which he had with him. Pus.h.i.+ng forward, therefore, he crossed the rugged Isthmus, and, after a painful march, arrived in safety at Nombre de Dios.

The event justified his apprehensions. He had been gone but three days, when a ruffian horde, after murdering the bishop of Guatemala, broke into Panama with the design of inflicting the same fate on the president, and of seizing the booty. No sooner were the tidings communicated to Gasca, than, with his usual energy, he levied a force and prepared to march to the relief of the invaded capital. But Fortune - or, to speak more correctly Providence - favored him here, as usual; and, on the eve of his departure, he learned that the marauders had been met by the citizens, and discomfited with great slaughter. Disbanding his forces, therefore, he equipped a fleet of nineteen vessels to transport himself and the royal treasure to Spain, where he arrived in safety, entering the harbour of Seville after a little more than four years from the period when he had sailed from the same port. *36

[Footnote 36: Ms. de Caravantes. - Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 183. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru Parte 2, lib 1, cap. 10. - Zarate Conq. del Peru, lib. 7, cap. 13. - Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 8, lib. 6. cap. 17. 2, lib 1, cap. 10. - Zarate Conq.]

Great was the sensation throughout the country caused by his arrival. Men could hardly believe that results so momentous had been accomplished in so short a time by a single individual, - a poor ecclesiastic, who, unaided by government, had, by his own strength, as it were, put down a rebellion which had so long set the arms of Spain at defiance!

The emperor was absent in Flanders. He was overjoyed on learning the complete success of Gasca's mission; and not less satisfied with the tidings of the treasure he had brought with him; for the exchequer, rarely filled to overflowing, had been exhausted by the recent troubles in Germany. Charles instantly wrote to the president, requiring his presence at court, that he might learn from his own lips the particulars of his expedition. Gasca, accordingly, attended by a numerous retinue of n.o.bles and cavaliers, - for who does not pay homage to him whom the king delighteth to honor? - embarked at Barcelona, and, after a favorable voyage, joined the Court in Flanders.

He was received by his royal master, who fully appreciated his services, in a manner most grateful to his feelings; and not long afterward he was raised to the bishopric of Palencia, - a mode of acknowledgment best suited to his character and deserts. Here he remained till 1561, when he was promoted to the vacant see of Siguenza. The rest of his days he pa.s.sed peacefully in the discharge of his episcopal functions; honored by his sovereign, and enjoying the admiration and respect of his countrymen. *37

[Footnote 37: Ibid., ubi supra. - Ms. de Caravantes. - Gomara, Hist. de as Indias, cap. 182. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 2, lib. 1 cap. 10. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru lib. 7, cap. 13.]

In his retirement, he was still consulted by the government in matters of importance relating to the Indies. The disturbances of that unhappy land were renewed, though on a much smaller scale than before, soon after the president's departure. They were chiefly caused by discontent with the repartimientos, and with the constancy of the Audience in enforcing the benevolent restrictions as to the personal services of the natives. But these troubles subsided, after a very few years, under the wise rule of the Mendozas, - two successive viceroys of that ill.u.s.trious house which has given so many of its sons to the service of Spain. Under their rule, the mild yet determined policy was pursued, of which Gasca had set the example. The ancient distractions of the country were permanently healed.

With peace, prosperity returned within the borders of Peru; and the consciousness of the beneficent results of his labors may have shed a ray of satisfaction, as it did of glory, over the evening of the president's life.

That life was brought to a close in November 1567, at an age, probably, not far from the one fixed by the sacred writer as the term of human existence. *38 He died at Valladolid, and was buried in the church of Santa Maria Magdalena, in that city, which he had built and liberally endowed. His monument, surmounted by the sculptured effigy of a priest in his sacerdotal robes, is still to be seen there, attracting the admiration of the traveller by the beauty of its execution. The banners taken from Gonzalo Pizarro on the field of Xaquixaguana were suspended over his tomb, as the trophies of his memorable mission to Peru.

*39 The banners have long since mouldered into dust, with the remains of him who slept beneath them; but the memory of his good deeds will endure for ever. *40 [Footnote 38: I have met with no account of the year in which Gasca was born; but an inscription on his portrait in the sacristy of St. Mary Magdalene at Valladolid, from which the engraving prefixed to this volume is taken, states that he died in 1567, at the age of seventy-one. This is perfectly consistent with the time of life at which he had probably arrived when we find him a collegiate at Salamanca, in the year 1522.]

[Footnote 39: "Murio en Valladolid, donde mando enterrar su cuerpo en la Iglesia de la advocacion de la Magdalena, que hizo edificar en aquella ciudad, donde se pusieron las vanderas que gano a Gonzalo Pizarro." Ms. de Caravantes.]

[Footnote 40: The memory of his achievements has not been left entirely to the care of the historian. It is but a few years since the character and administration of Gasca formed the subject of an elaborate panegyric from one of the most distinguished statesmen in the British parliament. (See Lord Brougham's speech on the maltreatment of the North American colonies, February, 1838.) The enlightened Spaniard of our day, who contemplates with sorrow the excesses committed by his countrymen of the sixteenth century in the New World, may feel an honest pride, that in this company of dark spirits should be found one to whom the present generation may turn as to the brightest model of integrity and wisdom.]

Gasca was plain in person, and his countenance was far from comely. He was awkward and ill-proportioned; for his limbs were too long for his body, - so that when he rode, he appeared to be much shorter than he really was. *41 His dress was humble, his manners simple, and there was nothing imposing in his presence.

But, on a nearer intercourse, there was a charm in his discourse that effaced every unfavorable impression produced by his exterior, and won the hearts of his hearers.

[Footnote 41: "Era muy pequeno de cuerpo con estrana hechura, que de la cintura abaxo tenia tanto cuerpo, como qualquiera hombre alto, y de la cintura al hombro no tenia vna tercia. Andando a cauallo parescia a vn mas pequeno de lo que era, porque todo era piernas: de rostro era muy feo: pero lo que la naturaleza le nego de las dotes del cuerpo, se los doblo en los del animo."

Garcila.s.so, Com. Real, Parte 2, lib. 5, cap. 2.]

The president's character may be thought to have been sufficiently portrayed in the history already given of his life.

It presented a combination of qualities which generally serve to neutralize each other, but which were mixed in such proportions in him as to give it additional strength. He was gentle, yet resolute; by nature intrepid, yet preferring to rely on the softer arts of policy. He was frugal in his personal expenditure, and economical in the public; yet caring nothing for riches on his own account, and never stinting his bounty when the public good required it. He was benevolent and placable, yet could deal sternly with the impenitent offender; lowly in his deportment, yet with a full measure of that self-respect which springs from conscious rect.i.tude of purpose; modest and unpretending, yet not shrinking from the most difficult enterprises; deferring greatly to others, yet, in the last resort, relying mainly on himself; moving with deliberation, - patiently waiting his time; but, when that came, bold, prompt, and decisive.

Gasca was not a man of genius, in the vulgar sense of that term.

At least, no one of his intellectual powers seems to have received an extraordinary development, beyond what is found in others. He was not a great writer, nor a great orator, nor a great general. He did not affect to be either. He committed the care of his military matters to military men; of ecclesiastical, to the clergy; and his civi and judicial concerns he reposed on the members of the Audience. He was not one of those little great men who aspire to do every thing themselves, under the conviction that nothing can be done so well by others. But the president was a keen judge of character. Whatever might be the office, he selected the best man for it. He did more. He a.s.sured himself of the fidelity of his agents, presided at their deliberations; dictated a general line of policy, and thus infused a spirit of unity into their plans, which made all move in concert to the accomplishment of one grand result.

A distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of his mind was his common sense, - the best subst.i.tute for genius in a ruler who has the destinies of his fellow-men at his disposal, and more indispensable than genius itself. In Gasca, the different qualities were blended in such harmony, that there was no room for excess. They seemed to regulate each other. While his sympathy with mankind taught him the nature of their wants, his reason suggested to what extent these were capable of relief, as well as the best mode of effecting it. He did not waste his strength on illusory schemes of benevolence, like Las Casas, on the one hand; nor did he countenance the selfish policy of the colonists, on the other.

He aimed at the practicable, - the greatest good practicable.

In accomplis.h.i.+ng his objects, he disclaimed force equally with fraud. He trusted for success to his power over the convictions of his hearers; and the source of this power was the confidence he inspired in his own integrity. Amidst all the calumnies of faction, no imputation was ever cast on the integrity of Gasca.

*42 No wonder that a virtue so rare should be of high price in Peru.

[Footnote 42: "Fue tan recatado y estremado en esta virtud, que puesto que de muchos quedo mal quisto, quando del Peru se partio para Espana, por el repartimiento que hizo: con todo esso, jamas nadie dixo del, ni sospecho; que en esto ni otra cosa, se vuiesse mouido por codicia." Fernandez, Hist. de Peru, Parte 1, lib. 2 cap. 95]

There are some men whose characters have been so wonderfully adapted to the peculiar crisis in which they appeared, that they seem to have been specially designed for it by Providence. Such was Was.h.i.+ngton in our own country, and Gasca in Peru We can conceive of individuals with higher qualities, at least with higher intellectual qualities, than belonged to either of these great men. But it was the wonderful conformity of their characters to the exigencies of their situation, the perfect adaptation of the means to the end, that const.i.tuted the secret of their success; that enabled Gasca so gloriously to crush revolution, and Was.h.i.+ngton still more gloriously to achieve it.

Gasca's conduct on his first coming to the colonies affords the best ill.u.s.tration of his character. Had he come backed by a military array, or even clothed in the paraphernalia of authority, every heart and hand would have been closed against him. But the humble ecclesiastic excited no apprehension; and his enemies were already disarmed, before he had begun his approaches. Had Gasca, impatient of Hinojosa's tardiness, listened to the suggestions of those who advised his seizure, he would have brought his cause into jeopardy by this early display of violence. But he wisely chose to win over his enemy by operating on his conviction.

In like manner, he waited his time for making his entry into Peru. He suffered his communications to do their work in the minds of the people, and was careful not to thrust in the sickle before the harvest was ripe. In this way, wherever he went, every thing was prepared for his coming; and when he set foot in Peru, the country was already his own.

After the dark and turbulent spirits with which we have been hitherto occupied, it is refres.h.i.+ng to dwell on a character like that of Gasca. In the long procession which has pa.s.sed in review before us, we have seen only the mail-clad cavalier, brandis.h.i.+ng his b.l.o.o.d.y lance, and mounted on his warhorse, riding over the helpless natives, or battling with his own friends and brothers; fierce, arrogant, and cruel, urged on by the l.u.s.t of gold, or the scarce more honorable love of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d glory. Mingled with these qualities, indeed, we have seen sparkles of the chivalrous and romantic temper which belongs to the heroic age of Spain.

But, with some honorable exceptions, it was the sc.u.m of her chivalry that resorted to Peru, and took service under the banner of the Pizarros. At the close of this long array of iron warriors, we behold the poor and humble missionary coming into the land on an errand of mercy, and everywhere proclaiming the glad tidings of peace. No warlike trumpet heralds his approach, nor is his course to be tracked by the groans of the wounded and the dying. The means he employs are in perfect harmony with his end. His weapons are argument and mild persuasion. It is the reason ne would conquer, not the body. He wins his way by conviction, not by violence. It is a moral victory to which he aspires, more potent, and happily more permanent, than that of the blood-stained conqueror. As he thus calmly, and imperceptibly, as it were, comes to his great results, he may remind us of the slow, insensible manner in which Nature works out her great changes in the material world, that are to endure when the ravages of the hurricane are pa.s.sed away and forgotten.

With the mission of Gasca terminates the history of the Conquest of Peru. The Conquest, indeed, strictly terminates with the suppression of the Peruvian revolt, when the strength, if not the spirit, of the Inca race was crushed for ever. The reader, however, might feel a natural curiosity to follow to its close the fate of the remarkable family who achieved the Conquest. Nor would the story of the invasion itself be complete without some account of the civil wars which grew out of it; which serve, moreover, as a moral commentary on preceding events, by showing that the indulgence of fierce, unbridled pa.s.sions is sure to recoil, sooner or later, even in this life, on the heads of the guilty.

It is true, indeed, that the troubles of the country were renewed on the departure of Gasca. The waters had been too fearfully agitated to be stilled, at once, into a calm; but they gradually subsided, under the temperate rule of his successors, who wisely profited by his policy and example. Thus the influence of the good president remained after he was withdrawn from the scene of his labors, and Peru, hitherto so distracted, continued to enjoy as large a share of repose as any portion of the colonial empire of Spain. With the benevolent mission of Gasca, then, the historian of the Conquest may be permitted to terminate his labors, - with feelings not unlike those of the traveller, who having long journeyed among the dreary forests and dangerous defiles of the mountains, a length emerges on some pleasant landscape smiling in tranquillity and peace.

Augustin de Zarate - a highly respectable authority, frequently cited in the later portion of this work - was Contador de Mercedes, Comptroller of Accounts, for Castile. This office he filled for fifteen years; after which he was sent by the government to Peru to examine into the state of the colonial finances, which had been greatly deranged by the recent troubles, and to bring them, if possible, into order.

Zarate went out accordingly in the train of the viceroy Blasco Nunez, and found himself, through the pa.s.sions of his imprudent leader, entangled, soon after his arrival, in the inextricable meshes of civil discord. In the struggle which ensued, he remained with the Royal Audience; and we find him in Lima, on the approach of Gonzalo Pizarro to that capital, when Zarate was deputed by the judges to wait on the insurgent chief, and require him to disband his troops and withdraw to his own estates. The historian executed the mission, for which he seems to have had little relish, and which certainly was not without danger. From this period, we rarely hear of him in the troubled scenes that ensued. He probably took no further part in affairs than was absolutely forced on him by circ.u.mstances; but the unfavorable bearing of his remarks on Gonzalo Pizarro intimates, that, however he may have been discontented with the conduct of the viceroy, he did not countenance, for a moment, the criminal ambition of his rival. The times were certainly unpropitious to the execution of the financial reforms for which Zarate had come to Peru. But he showed so much real devotion to the interests of the Crown, that the emperor, on his return, signified his satisfaction by making him Superintendent of the Finances in Flanders.

Soon after his arrival in Peru, he seems to have conceived the idea of making his countrymen at home acquainted with the stirring events pa.s.sing in the colony, which, moreover, afforded some striking pa.s.sages for the study of the historian. Although he collected notes and diaries, as he tells us, for this purpose, he did not dare to avail himself of them till his return to Castile. "For to have begun the history in Peru," he says, "would have alone been enough to put my life in jeopardy; since a certain commander, named Francisco de Carbajal, threatened to take vengeance on any one who should be so rash as to attempt the relation of his exploits, - far less deserving, as they were, to be placed on record, than to be consigned to eternal oblivion."

In this same commander, the reader will readily recognize the veteran lieutenant of Gonzalo Pizarro.

On his return home, Zarate set about the compilation of his work.

His first purpose was to confine it to the events that followed the arrival of Blasco Nunez; but he soon found, that, to make these intelligible, he must trace the stream of history higher up towards its sources. He accordingly enlarged his plan, and, beginning with the discovery of Peru, gave an entire view of the conquest and subsequent occupation of the country, bringing the narrative down to the close of Gasca's mission. For the earlier portion of the story, he relied on the accounts of persons who took a leading part in the events. He disposes more summarily of this portion than of that in which he himself was both a spectator and an actor; where his testimony, considering the advantages his position gave him for information, is of the highest value.

Alcedo in his Biblioteca Americana, Ms., speaks of Zarate's work as "containing much that is good, but as not ent.i.tled to the praise of exactness." He wrote under the influence of party heat, which necessarily operates to warp the fairest mind somewhat from its natural bent. For this we must make allowance, in perusing accounts of conflicting parties. But there is no intention, apparently, to turn the truth aside in support of his own cause; and his access to the best sources of knowledge often supplies us with particulars not within the reach of other chroniclers. His narrative is seasoned, moreover, with sensible reflections and pa.s.sing comments, that open gleams of light into the dark pa.s.sages of that eventful period. Yet the style of the author can make but moderate pretensions to the praise of elegance or exactness; while the sentences run into that tedious, interminable length which belongs to the garrulous compositions of the regular thoroughbred chronicler of the olden time.

The personalities, necessarily incident, more or less, to such a work, led its author to shrink from publication, at least during his life. By the jealous spirit of the Castilian cavalier, "censure," he says, "however light, is regarded with indignation, and even praise is rarely dealt out in a measure satisfactory to the subject of it." And he expresses his conviction that those do wisely, who allow their accounts of their own times to repose in the quiet security of ma.n.u.script, till the generation that is to be affected by them has pa.s.sed away. His own ma.n.u.script, however, was submitted to the emperor; and it received such commendation from this royal authority, that Zarate, plucking up a more courageous spirit, consented to give it to the press. It accordingly appeared at Antwerp, in 1555, in octavo; and a second edition was printed in folio, at Seville, in 1577. It has since been incorporated in Barcia's valuable collection; and, whatever indignation or displeasure it may have excited among contemporaries, who smarted under the author's censure, or felt themselves defrauded of their legitimate guerdon, Zarate's work has taken a permanent rank among the most respectable authorities for a history of the time.

The name of Zarate naturally suggests that of Fernandez, for both were laborers in the same field of history. Diego Fernandez de Palencia, or Palentino, as he is usually called, from the place of his birth came over to Peru, and served as a private in the royal army raised to quell the insurrections that broke out after Gasca's return to Castile Amidst his military occupations, he found leisure to collect materials for a history of the period, to which he was further urged by the viceroy, Mendoza, Marques de Canete, who bestowed on him, as he tells us, the post of Chronicler of Peru. This mark of confidence in his literary capacity intimates higher attainments in Fernandez than might be inferred from the humble station that he occupied. With the fruits of his researches the soldier-chronicler returned to Spain, and, after a time, completed his narrative of the insurrection of Giron.

The ma.n.u.script was seen by the President of the Council of the Indies, and he was so much pleased with its execution, that he urged the author to write the account, in like manner, of Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion, and of the administration of Gasca. The historian was further stimulated, as he mentions in his dedication to Philip the Second, by the promise of a guerdon from that monarch, on the completion of his labors; a very proper, as well as politic, promise, but which inevitably suggests the idea of an influence not altogether favorable to severe historic impartiality. Nor will such an inference be found altogether at variance with truth; for while the narrative of Fernandez studiously exhibits the royal cause in the most favorable aspect to the reader, it does scanty justice to the claims of the opposite party. It would not be meet, indeed, that an apology for rebellion should be found in the pages of a royal pensioner; but there are always mitigating circ.u.mstances, which, however we may condemn the guilt, may serve to lessen our indignation towards the guilty. These circ.u.mstances are not to be found in the pages of Fernandez. It is unfortunate for the historian of such events, that it is so difficult to find one disposed to do even justice to the claims of the unsuccessful rebel. Yet the Inca Garcila.s.so has not shrunk from this, in the case of Gonzalo Pizarro; and even Gomara, though living under the shadow, or rather in the suns.h.i.+ne, of the Court, has occasionally ventured a generous protest in his behalf.

The countenance thus afforded to Fernandez from the highest quarter opened to him the best fountains of intelligence, - at least, on the government side of the quarrel. Besides personal communication with the royalist leaders, he had access to their correspondence, diaries, and official doc.u.ments. He industriously profited by his opportunities; and his narrative, taking up the story of the rebellion from its birth, continues it to its final extinction, and the end of Gasca's administration.

Thus the First Part of his work, as it was now called, was brought down to the commencement of the Second, and the whole presented a complete picture of the distractions of the nation, till a new order of things was introduced, and tranquillity was permanently established throughout the country.

The diction is sufficiently plain, not aspiring to rhetorical beauties beyond the reach of its author, and out of keeping with the simple character of a chronicle. The sentences are arranged with more art than in most of the unwieldy compositions of the time; and, while there is no attempt at erudition or philosophic speculation, the current of events flows on in an orderly manner, tolerably prolix, it is true, but leaving a clear and intelligible impression on the mind of the reader. No history of that period compares with it in the copiousness of its details; and it has accordingly been resorted to by later compilers, as an inexhaustible reservoir for the supply of their own pages; a circ.u.mstance that may be thought of itself to bear no slight testimony to the general fidelity, as well as fulness, of the narrative. - The Chronicle of Fernandez, thus arranged in two parts, under the general t.i.tle of Historia del Peru, was given to the world in the author's lifetime, at Seville, in 1571, in one volume, folio, being the edition used in the preparation of this work.

Appendix

No. I

Description Of The Royal Progresses Of The Incas; Extracted From Sarmiento's Relacion, Ms.