When the first expedition was organized for this conquest by Pizarro, Almagro, and Luque, Pedrarias, then governor at Panamá, had stipulated for a fourth interest, in return for which he bestowed the weighty sum of his patronage. But the opening events proved to be less flattering than he had expected, and when demands came for pecuniary aid toward the enterprise, he shrank from the prospect, and allowed himself to be bought off for the paltry consideration of one thousand pesos de oro. Soon came glowing reports, however, and bitter were his denunciations of the folly which had permitted so rich a prize to escape him; and deep his feeling rankled against the late partners, whom he never ceased to suspect of duplicity and of having beguiled him with misrepresentation.
While he was thus brooding, it happened that Nicolás de Ribera arrived in Nicaragua, commissioned by the Peruvian conquerors to procure reinforcements. He sought in particular to win for this purpose Hernando de Soto, Hernan Ponce, and Francisco Compañon, all men of means, who had two vessels on the stocks, nearly finished and available for the voyage. By revolving before their eyes, in kaleidoscopic harmony, a few specimens of the Inca's treasures, illustrated by tales no less alluring, he secured the active sympathy not only of these men, but of a crowd of beggared adherents.
THE PERUVIAN ADVENTURE.
Not least dazzled was Pedrarias. Indeed, he could not sleep for the visions that crowded upon his brain. Finally the idea struck him that he might here retrieve his folly by securing an interest in the vessels and reinforcements, and obtain a fair proportion of that gold-enameled region, perhaps the whole. Pizarro and Almagro had already prepared the way, and it might even be his fortune to secure the results of their victories. In order to lull the Peruvian emissaries he promised to do everything to aid Pizarro and Luque; as for Almagro, he had been deceived by him, and deceit his confiding nature could not endure. He thereupon entered secretly into negotiation with the owners of the vessels, but overreached himself by demanding the lion's share in command as well as returns. Feeling himself in duty bound to spare his own purse, he looked about for victims to furnish means, and bethought himself of Ribera's vessel. An alguacil was sent to seize it, but Ribera received timely warning and escaped, after prevailing on Ponce, Soto, and their adherents, to sail away to Panamá and there arrange with Pizarro for a liberal share in the conquest, leaving behind the foiled Pedrarias.[XXI-18]
The governor's mortification was increased by local troubles, as might be expected from his arbitrary rule and irascible temper, which had now reached octogenarian crabbedness. A most distasteful feature had been the arrival of Alcalde Mayor Francisco de Castañeda, appointed by the king to take charge of the judicial affairs of the province. This division of authority was intolerable, and, on the pretence that disorders must result where different persons exercised judicial and gubernatorial powers, he urged his friends in Spain to obtain for him the privilege to appoint and remove at pleasure alcaldes mayores and lieutenants. Meanwhile he made an effort to exercise this power, alleging the possession of a royal cédula authorizing him to do so; but Castañeda, who was not so easily imposed upon, challenged him to produce the document, and this not being done, he added to his chagrin by ignoring him.
There was little likelihood of any arbitrary powers being conferred on the governor, for complaints of abuses were fast pouring in against him, headed by the influential ayuntamiento of Leon. A grave charge was peculation. When Rodrigo del Castillo surrendered his office to the formally appointed treasurer he took the opportunity to inform the king that large sums in gold had been taken from the Indians by Córdoba. All this the governor had laid hands upon without any accounting therefor to the crown. He had also managed to appropriate the confiscated estate of Córdoba, and to defraud a host of others, besides perpetrating outrages and cruelties of every description.[XXI-19]
DEATH OF PEDRARIAS.
In the midst of the brewing troubles, in the year 1530,[XXI-20] this Timur of the Indies died at Leon, nearly ninety years of age. His body was buried in the same church with his victim Hernandez de Córdoba, and his spirit went to meet the spirit of Vasco Nuñez, and the spirits of the hundreds of thousands of slaughtered savages whose benighted souls he had sent on before.[XXI-21] Not that he quailed at the thought. By this time his mind had become so fixed in some incomprehensible mould of logic that there was no disturbing it. Further than this he knew he could not escape the inevitable.
A disposition so ready to find solace is to be envied, the more so since it forms a redeeming feature. No man is, for that matter, wholly depraved, nor are any faultless. In the worst there is much that is good; in the best much evil. And the difference between the best and the worst is, in the eye of the Creator, much less than in the eye of the creature. For a period of sixteen years, during the most important epoch in the history of Darien, an irascible old man, cruel and vindictive, plays a prominent part. His name is infamous, and so it deserves to be. Some of his misdeeds may be attributed to inherent wickedness, others to infirmities of temper; but many to peculiar conditions incident to the colonization of a new country, and to the teachings of the times. Spanish colonists of the sixteenth century, reared under the influences of excessive loyalty, and suddenly withdrawn from the presence of their august sovereign to distant parts, were like children for the first time freed from the arbitrary rule of injudicious parents. While the safeguards of society were removed, and free scope thus given to passion, there yet remained their religious belief, the fruit of early teachings. That strange fanaticism which blended avarice and deeds diabolical with pretended zeal for the glory of God, not only permitted but demanded blood and vengeance. Under the circumstances, therefore, the wonder is, not that we find so much that is wicked in these Spanish adventurers, but that men so taught and conditioned display so many qualities noble and magnanimous. Farewell Pedrarias! Few there are who came to these parts of whom so much of evil, so little of good, may be truthfully said. And thou Death, almighty leveller! who by thy speedy compensation has brought this rusty, crusty old man, these several centuries, and for all the centuries time shall tell, to be no better than Vasco Nuñez, than Córdoba, than the meanest of the multitude of savages he has vilely slain, we praise thee![XXI-22]