History Of The Conquest Of Peru

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But, however desirable this might appear, a very little reflection showed
that it was not easy to be done, if, indeed, it were practicable. The great
distance of Peru required troops to be transported not merely across the
ocean, but over the broad extent of the great continent. And how was
this to be effected, when the principal posts, the keys of communication
with the country, were in the hands of the rebels, while their fleet rode in
the Pacific, the mistress of its waters, cutting off all approach to the
coast? Even if a Spanish force could be landed in Peru, what chance
would it have, unaccustomed, as it would be, to the country and the
climate, of coping with the veterans of Pizarro, trained to war in the
Indies and warmly attached to the person of their commander? The new
levies thus sent out might become themselves infected with the spirit of
insurrection, and cast off their own allegiance.3

Nothing remained, therefore, but to try conciliatory measures. The
government, however mortifying to its pride, must retrace its steps. A
free grace must be extended to those who submitted, and such persuasive
arguments should be used, and such politic concessions made, as would
convince the refractory colonists that it was their interest, as well as their
duty, to return to their allegiance.

But to approach the people in their present state of excitement, and to
make those concessions without too far compromising the dignity and
permanent authority of the Crown, was a delicate matter, for the success
of which they must rely wholly on the character of the agent. After much
deliberation, a competent person, as it was thought, was found in an
ecclesiastic, by the name of Pedro de la Gasca,--a name which, brighter
by contrast with the gloomy times in which it first appeared, still shines
with undiminished splendor after the lapse of ages.

Pedro de la Gasca was born, probably, towards the close of the fifteenth
century, in a small village in Castile named Barco de Avila. He came,
both by father and mother's side, from an ancient and noble lineage;
ancient indeed, if, as his biographers contend, he derived his descent
from Casca, one of the conspirators against Julius Caesar!4 Having the
misfortune to lose his father early in life, he was placed by his uncle in
the famous seminary of Alcala de Henares, rounded by the great
Ximenes. Here he made rapid proficiency in liberal studies, especially in
those connected with his profession, and at length received the degree of
Master of Theology.

The young man, however, discovered other talents than those demanded
by his sacred calling. The war of the comunidades was then raging in the
country; and the authorities of his college showed a disposition to take
the popular side. But Gasca, putting himself at the head of an armed
force, seized one of the gates of the city, and, with assistance from the
royal troops, secured the place to the interests of the Crown. This early
display of loyalty was probably not lost on his vigilant sovereign.5

From Alcala, Gasca was afterwards removed to Salamanca; where he
distinguished himself by his skill in scholastic disputation, and obtained
the highest academic honors in that ancient university, the fruitful
nursery of scholarship and genius. He was subsequently intrusted with
the management of some important affairs of an ecclesiastical nature,
and made a member of the Council of the Inquisition.

In this latter capacity he was sent to Valencia, about 1540, to examine
into certain alleged cases of heresy in that quarter of the country. These
were involved in great obscurity; and, although Gasca had the assistance
of several eminent jurists in the investigation, it occupied him nearly two
years. In the conduct of this difficult matter, he showed so much
penetration, and such perfect impartiality, that he was appointed by the
Cortes of Valencia to the office of visitador of that kingdom; a highly
responsible post, requiring great discretion in the person who filled it,
since it was his province to inspect the condition of the courts of justice
and of finance, throughout the land, with authority to reform abuses. It
was proof of extraordinary consideration, that it should have been
bestowed on Gasca; since it was a departure from the established usage -
-and that in a nation most wedded to usage--to confer the office on any
but a subject of the Aragonese crown.6

Gasca executed the task assigned to him with independence and ability.
While he was thus occupied, the people of Valencia were thrown into
consternation by a meditated invasion of the French and the Turks, who,
under the redoubtable Barbarossa, menaced the coast and the
neighboring Balearic isles. Fears were generally entertained of a rising
of the Morisco population; and the Spanish officers who had command
in that quarter, being left without the protection of a navy, despaired of
making head against the enemy. In this season of general panic, Gasca
alone appeared calm and self-possessed. He remonstrated with the
Spanish commanders on their unsoldierlike despondency; encouraged
them to confide in the loyalty of the Moriscos; and advised the
immediate erection of fortifications along the shores for their protection.
He was, in consequence, named one of a commission to superintend
these works, and to raise levies for defending the sea-coast; and so
faithfully was the task performed, that Barbarossa, after some ineffectual
attempts to make good his landing, was baffled at all points, and
compelled to abandon the enterprise as hopeless. The chief credit of this
resistance must be assigned to Gasca, who superintended the
construction of the defences, and who was enabled to contribute a large
part of the requisite funds by the economical reforms he had introduced
into the administration of Valencia.7

It was at this time, the latter part of the year 1545, that the council of
Philip selected Gasca as the person most competent to undertake the
perilous mission to Peru.8 His character, indeed, seemed especially
suited to it. His loyalty had been shown through his whole life. With
great suavity of manners he combined the most intrepid resolution.
Though his demeanor was humble, as beseemed his calling, it was far
from abject; for he was sustained by a conscious rectitude of purpose,
that impressed respect on all with whom he had intercourse. He was
acute in his perceptions, had a shrewd knowledge of character, and,
though bred to the cloister, possessed an acquaintance with affairs, and
even with military science, such as was to have been expected only from
one reared in courts and camps.

Without hesitation, therefore, the council unanimously recommended
him to the emperor, and requested his approbation of their proceedings.
Charles had not been an inattentive observer of Gasca's course. His
attention had been particularly called to the able manner in which he had
conducted the judicial process against the heretics of Valencia.9 The
monarch saw, at once, that he was the man for the present emergency;
and he immediately wrote to him, with his own hand, expressing his
entire satisfaction at the appointment, and intimating his purpose to
testify his sense of his worth by preferring him to one of the principal
sees then vacant.

Gasca accepted the important mission now tendered to him without
hesitation; and, repairing to Madrid, received the instructions of the
government as to the course to be pursued. They were expressed in the
most benign and conciliatory tone, perfectly in accordance with the
suggestions of his own benevolent temper.10 But, while he commended
the tone of the instructions, he considered the powers with which he was
to be intrusted as wholly incompetent to their object. They were
conceived in the jealous spirit with which the Spanish government
usually limited the authority of its great colonial officers, whose distance
from home gave peculiar cause for distrust. On every strange and
unexpected emergency, Gasca saw that he should be obliged to send
back for instructions. This must cause delay, where promptitude was
essential to success. The Court, moreover, as he represented to the
council, was, from its remoteness from the scene of action, utterly
incompetent to pronounce as to the expediency of the measures to be
pursued. Some one should be sent out in whom the king could implicitly
confide, and who should be invested with powers competent to every
emergency; powers not merely to decide on what was best, but to carry
that decision into execution; and he boldly demanded that he should go
not only as the representative of the sovereign, but clothed with all the
authority of the sovereign himself. Less than this would defeat the very
object for which he was to be sent. "For myself," he concluded, "I ask
neither salary nor compensation of any kind. I covet no display of state
or military array. With my stoic and breviary I trust to do the work that
is committed to me.11 Infirm as I am in body, the repose of my own
home would have been more grateful to me than this dangerous mission;
but I will not shrink from it at the bidding of my sovereign, and if, as is
very probable, I may not be permitted again to see my native land, I
shall, at least, be cheered by the consciousness of having done my best to
serve its interests." 12

The members of the council, while they listened with admiration to the
disinterested avowal of Gasca, were astounded by the boldness of his
demands. Not that they distrusted the purity of his motives, for these
were above suspicion. But the powers for which he stipulated were so
far beyond those hitherto delegated to a colonial viceroy, that they felt
they had no warrant to grant them. They even shrank from soliciting
them from the emperor, and required that Gasca himself should address
the monarch, and state precisely the grounds on which demands so
extraordinary were founded.

Gasca readily adopted the suggestion, and wrote in the most full and
explicit manner to his sovereign, who had then transferred his residence
to Flanders. But Charles was not so tenacious, or, at least, so jealous, of
authority, as his ministers. He had been too long in possession of it to
feel that jealousy; and, indeed, many years were not to elapse, before,
oppressed by its weight, he was to resign it altogether into the hands of
his son. His sagacious mind, moreover, readily comprehended the
difficulties of Gasca's position. He felt that the present extraordinary
crisis was to be met only by extraordinary measures. He assented to the
force of his vassal's arguments, and, on the sixteenth of February, 1546,
wrote him another letter expressive of his approbation, and intimated his
willingness to grant him powers as absolute as those he had requested.

Gasca was to be styled President of the Royal Audience. But, under this
simple title, he was placed at the head of every department in the colony,
civil, military, and judicial. He was empowered to make new
repartimientos, and to confirm those already made. He might declare
war, levy troops, appoint to all offices, or remove from them, at pleasure.
He might exercise the royal prerogative of pardoning offences, and was
especially authorized to grant an amnesty to all, without exception,
implicated in the present rebellion. He was, moreover, to proclaim at
once the revocation of the odious ordinances. These two last provisions
might be said to form the basis of all his operations.

Since ecclesiastics were not to be reached by the secular arm, and yet
were often found fomenting troubles in the colonies, Gasca was
permitted to banish from Peru such as he thought fit. He might even
send home the viceroy, if the good of the country required it. Agreeably
to his own suggestion, he was to receive no specified stipend; but he had
unlimited orders on the treasuries both of Panama and Peru. He was
furnished with letters from the emperor to the principal authorities, not
only in Peru, but in Mexico and the neighboring colonies, requiring their
countenance and support; and, lastly, blank letters, bearing the royal
signature, were delivered to him, which he was to fill up at his
pleasure.13

While the grant of such unbounded powers excited the warmest
sentiments of gratitude in Gasca towards the sovereign who could repose
in him so much confidence, it seems--which is more extraordinary--not
to have raised corresponding feelings of envy in the courtiers. They
knew well that it was not for himself that the good ecclesiastic had
solicited them. On the contrary, some of the council were desirous that
he should be preferred to the bishopric, as already promised him, before
his departure; conceiving that he would thus go with greater authority
than as an humble ecclesiastic, and fearing, moreover, that Gasca
himself, were it omitted, might feel some natural disappointment. But
the president hastened to remove these impressions. "The honor would
avail me little," he said, "where I am going; and it would be manifestly
wrong to appoint me to an office in the Church, while I remain at such a
distance that I cannot discharge the duties of it. The consciousness of
my insufficiency," he continued, "should I never return, would lie heavy
on my soul in my last moments." 14 The politic reluctance to accept the
mitre has passed into a proverb. But there was no affectation here; and
Gasca's friends, yielding to his arguments, forbore to urge the matter
further.

The new president now went forward with his preparation. They were
few and simple; for he was to be accompanied by a slender train of
followers, among whom the most conspicuous was Alonso de Alvarado,
the gallant officer who, as the reader may remember, long commanded
under Francisco Pizarro. He had resided of late years at court; and now
at Gasca's request accompanied him to Peru, where his presence might
facilitate negotiations with the insurgents, while his military experience
would prove no less valuable in case of an appeal to arms.15 Some
delay necessarily occurred in getting ready his little squadron, and it was
not till the 26th of May, 1546, that the president and his suite embarked
at San Lucar for the New World.

After a prosperous voyage, and not a long one for that day, he landed,
about the middle of July, at the port of Santa Martha. Here he received
the astounding intelligence of the battle of Ariaquito, of the defeat and
death of the viceroy, and of the manner in which Gonzalo Pizarro had
since established his absolute rule over the land. Although these events
had occurred several months before Gasca's departure from Spain, yet,
so imperfect was the intercourse, no tidings of them had then reached
that country.

They now filled the president with great anxiety; as he reflected that the
insurgents, after so atrocious an act as the slaughter of the viceroy, might
well despair of grace, and become reckless of consequences. He was
careful, therefore, to have it understood, that the date of his commission
was subsequent to that of the fatal battle, and that it authorized an entire
amnesty of all offences hitherto committed against the government.16

Yet, in some points of view, the death of Blasco Nunez might be
regarded as an auspicious circumstance for the settlement of the country.
Had he lived till Gasca's arrival, the latter would have been greatly
embarrassed by the necessity of acting in concert with a person so
generally detested in the colony, or by the unwelcome alternative of
sending him back to Castile. The insurgents, moreover, would, in all
probability, be now more amenable to reason, since all personal
animosity might naturally be buried in the grave of their enemy.

The president was much embarrassed by deciding in what quarter he
should attempt to enter Peru. Every port was in the hands of Pizarro, and
was placed under the care of his officers, with strict charge to intercept
any communications from Spain, and to detain such persons as bore a
commission from that country until his pleasure could be known
respecting them. Gasca, at length, decided on crossing over to Nombre
de Dios, then held with a strong force by Hernan Mexia, an officer to
whose charge Gonzalo had committed this strong gate to his dominions,
as to a person on whose attachment to his cause he could confidently
rely.

Had Gasca appeared off this place in a menacing attitude, with a military
array, or, indeed, with any display of official pomp that might have
awakened distrust in the commander, he would doubtless have found it
no easy matter to effect a landing. But Mexia saw nothing to apprehend
in the approach of a poor ecclesiastic, without an armed force, with
hardly even a retinue to support him, coming solely, as it seemed, on an
errand of mercy. No sooner, therefore, was he acquainted with the
character of the envoy, and his mission, than he prepared to receive him
with the honors due to his rank, and marched out at the head of his
soldiers, together with a considerable body of ecclesiastics resident in the
place. There was nothing in the person of Gasca, still less in his humble
clerical attire and modest retinue, to impress the vulgar spectator with
feelings of awe or reverence. Indeed, the poverty-stricken aspect, as it
seemed, of himself and his followers, so different from the usual state
affected by the Indian viceroys, excited some merriment among the rude
soldiery, who did not scruple to break their coarse jests on his
appearance, in hearing of the president himself.17 "If this is the sort of
governor his Majesty sends over to us," they exclaimed, "Pizarro need
not trouble his head much about it."

Yet the president, far from being ruffled by this ribaldry, or from
showing resentment to its authors, submitted to it with the utmost
humility, and only seemed the more grateful to his own brethren, who, by
their respectful demeanor, appeared anxious to do him honor.

But, however plain and unpretending the manners of Gasca, Mexia, on
his first interview with him soon discovered that he had no common man
to deal with. The president, after briefly explaining the nature of his
commission, told him that he had come as a messenger of peace; and that
it was on peaceful measures he relied for his success. He then stated the
general scope of his commission, his authority to grant a free pardon to
all, without exception, who at once submitted to government, and,
finally, his purpose to proclaim the revocation of the ordinances. The
objects of the revolution were thus attained. To contend longer would be
manifest rebellion, and that without a motive; and he urged the
commander by every principle of loyalty and patriotism to support him
in settling the distractions of the country, and bringing it back to its
allegiance.

The candid and conciliatory language of the president, so different from
the arrogance of Blasco Nunez, and the austere demeanor of Vaca de
Castro, made a sensible impression on Mexia. He admitted the force of
Gasca's reasoning, and flattered himself that Gonzalo Pizarro would not
be insensible to it. Though attached to the fortunes of that leader, he was
loyal in heart, and, like most of the party, had been led by accident,
rather than by design, into rebellion; and now that so good an
opportunity occurred to do it with safety, he was not unwilling to retrace
his steps, and secure the royal favor by thus early returning to his
allegiance. This he signified to the president, assuring him of his hearty
cooperation in the good work of reform.18

This was an important step for Gasca. It was yet more important for him
to secure the obedience of Hinojosa, the governor of Panama, in the
harbor of which city lay Pizarro's navy, consisting of two-and-twenty
vessels. But it was not easy to approach this officer. He was a person of
much higher character than was usually found among the reckless
adventurers in the New World. He was attached to the interests of
Pizarro, and the latter had requited him by placing him in command of
his armada and of Panama, the key to his territories on the Pacific.

The president first sent Mexia and Alonso de Alvarado to prepare the
way for his own coming, by advising Hinojosa of the purport of his
mission. He soon after followed, and was received by that commander
with every show of outward respect. But while the latter listened with
deference to the representations of Gasca, they failed to work the change
in him which they had wrought in Mexia; and he concluded by asking the
president to show him his powers, and by inquiring whether they gave
him authority to confirm Pizarro in his present post, to which he was
entitled no less by his own services than by the general voice of the
people.

This was an embarrassing question. Such a concession would have been
altogether too humiliating to the Crown; but to have openly avowed this
at the present juncture to so stanch an adherent of Pizarro might have
precluded all further negotiation. The president evaded the question,
therefore, by simply stating, that the time had not yet come for him to
produce his powers, but that Hinojosa might be assured they were such
as to secure an ample recompense to every loyal servant of his
country.19

Hinojosa was not satisfied; and he immediately wrote to Pizarro,
acquainting him with Gasca's arrival and with the object of his mission,
at the same time plainly intimating his own conviction that the president
had no authority to confirm him in the government. But before the
departure of the ship, Gasca secured the services of a Dominican friar,
who had taken his passage on board for one of the towns on the coast.
This man he intrusted with manifestoes, setting forth the purport of his
visit, and proclaiming the abolition of the ordinances, with a free pardon
to all who returned to their obedience. He wrote, also, to the prelates
and to the corporations of the different cities. The former he requested
to cooperate with him in introducing a spirit of loyalty and subordination
among the people, while he intimated to the towns his purpose to confer
with them hereafter, in order to devise some effectual measures for the
welfare of the country. These papers the Dominican engaged to
distribute, himself, among the principal cities of the colony; and he
faithfully kept his word, though, as it proved, at no little hazard of his
life. The seeds thus scattered might many of them fall on barren ground.
But the greater part, the president trusted, would take root in the hearts
of the people; and he patiently waited for the harvest.

Meanwhile, though he failed to remove the scruples of Hinojosa, the
courteous manners of Gasca, and his mild, persuasive discourse, had a
visible effect on other individuals with whom he had daily intercourse.
Several of these, and among them some of the principal cavaliers in
Panama, as well as in the squadron, expressed their willingness to join
the royal cause, and aid the president in maintaining it. Gasca profited
by their assistance to open a communication with the authorities of
Guatemala and Mexico, whom he advised of his mission, while he
admonished them to allow no intercourse to be carried on with the
insurgents on the coast of Peru. He, at length, also prevailed on the
governor of Panama to furnish him with the means of entering into
communication with Gonzalo Pizarro himself; and a ship was despatched
to Lima, bearing a letter from Charles the Fifth, addressed to that chief,
with an epistle also from Gasca.

The emperor's communication was couched in the most condescending
and even conciliatory terms. Far from taxing Gonzalo with rebellion, his
royal master affected to regard his conduct as in a manner imposed on
him by circumstances, especially by the obduracy of the viceroy Nunez
in denying the colonists the inalienable right of petition. He gave no
intimation of an intent to confirm Pizarro in the government, or, indeed,
to remove him from it; but simply referred him to Gasca as one who
would acquaint him with the royal pleasure, and with whom he was to
cooperate in restoring tranquillity to the country.

Gasca's own letter was pitched on the same politic key. He remarked,
however, that the exigencies which had hitherto determined Gonzalo's
line of conduct existed no longer. All that had been asked was conceded.
There was nothing now to contend for; and it only remained for Pizarro
and his followers to show their loyalty and the sincerity of their
principles by obedience to the Crown. Hitherto, the president said,
Pizarro had been in arms against the viceroy; and the people had
supported him as against a common enemy. If he prolonged the contest,
that enemy must be his sovereign. In such a struggle, the people would
be sure to desert him; and Gasca conjured him, by his honor as a
cavalier, and his duty as a loyal vassal, to respect the royal authority, and
not rashly provoke a contest which must prove to the world that his
conduct hitherto had been dictated less by patriotic motives than by
selfish ambition.