Discoverers, pacificators, first settlers and their immediate descendants, possessed advantages over others. They were made hijosdalgo de solar conocido, with all the honors, according to law and custom, of hijosdalgo and gentlemen of Spain. They might bear arms, by giving bonds, before any justice, that they would use them solely in self-defence. And that it might be known who were entitled to reward, viceroys and presidents of audiencias were directed to examine into the merits of cases, and see that a book was kept by the escribano de gobernacion, in which were recorded the services and merits of every person seeking preferment.
For the government of the settlement, the governor in whose district it might be, had to declare whether it was to be ciudad, villa, or lugar, that is to say, a town less than a villa, and greater than aldea. A ciudad metropolitana, or capital of the province, to have a juez with the title of adelantado, that is to say, a military and political governor of a province; or alcalde mayor, governor of a pueblo not the capital of the province; or corregidor, a magistrate with criminal jurisdiction only; or alcalde ordinario, mayor with criminal jurisdiction. This juez was to have jurisdiction in solidum, and jointly with the regimiento. The administration of public affairs was vested in two or three treasury officials, twelve regidores, or members of the town council, appointed, not elected; two fieles ejecutores, or regidores having charge of weights; in each parish two jurados, who saw that people were well provided, especially with provisions; a procurador general, attorney with general powers; a mayordomo, having charge of public property; an escribano de consejo, notary of the council; two escribanos públicos; one escribano de minas y registros; a pregonero mayor, official vendue-master; a corredor de lonja, merchants' broker, and two porteros, or janitors of the town council. If the city was diocesana, or sufragánea, it must have eight regidores, and the other officers in perpetuity; villas and lugares only to have an alcalde ordinario, say, four regidores, an alguacil, or bailiff, an escribano de consejo y público, and a mayordomo.
ARMS OF THE CITY OF PANAMÁ.
[XV-3] The prior of Lora, chaplain of the king in 1522, was proposed to the pope for the office of bishop of the country lying between Nombre de Dios and Higueras. 'Siruenla cinco Dignidades, y dos Canonigos, tres Capellanes: y ocho Colegiales del Colegio. Tiene Sacristan Mayor con carga de Sochantre en el Coro; y tiene vna sola Parroquia en ella, y su comarca.' Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles., ii. 56. This author, as well as Alcedo in Dic. Univ., iv. 33, gives a list of bishops, but both are incorrect. It was somewhat later, the time of which is written in Purchas, His Pilgrimes, iv. 882. 'The limits of the Counsell of Panama, which was first called Castilla del Oro, and afterwards Terra Firme, are very small; for the Counsell is principally resident there, for the dispatch of the Fleetes and Merchants, which goe and come to Peru: it hath in length East and West about ninetie leagues.' Further reference, Morelli, Fasti Novi Orbis, 96; Oviedo, iii. 57-117; Herrera, dec. iii. lib. i. cap. xvi.; Carta de la Audiencia de Santo Domingo, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., i. 413; Enciso, Suma de Geografia, 57.
[XV-4] As a discoverer, his talents were unequal to the attempt. As a writer, Andagoya figured with Oviedo, Enciso, and other noted men in the retinue of the unscrupulous Pedrarias. Born in Alava province, he came to the Isthmus in 1514, and took an active part in the various expeditions for its subjugation and settlement. Through the favor of Pedrarias, whose wife's maid he married, he rose to encomendero, to regidor of Panamá, and, in 1522, to inspector-general of the Isthmus Indians. The present expedition, which brought back wonderful reports of the Inca empire, might have gained him the glories of that conquest, or at least he might have shared them with Pizarro, had his health not broken down. As it was, he merely acquired wealth as agent for the Peruvian hero, and although he rose afterward to adelantado and governor of New Castile, his integrity and comparative want of audacity prevented him from reaping the benefits within reach of less scrupulous rivals. The original of his well-written narrative, relating the history of the Isthmus and adjoining region in connection with his career, was found by Navarrete in the Seville Archives, and published in his Col. de Viages, iii. 393-459, from which source Markham made the translation issued in 1865 by the Hakluyt Society. Oviedo's account of Andagoya's career, from a different source, iv. 126-32, confirms the general exactness of his narrative, although Acosta, Comp. Hist. Nueva Granada, 383, declares it colored with a view to advocate his claim to the governorship of New Castile. Helps' Span. Conq., iii. 426, and March y Labores, Marina Española, ii. 121, give Andagoya's voyage.