The three speculators of Panama had made up their band of mercenaries, or what the Scotch very expressively term “rank rievers,” to plunder the Peruvians. These consisted of one hundred and eighty men, thirty of whom were horsemen. These were all they could raise; and these were sufficient, as experience had now testified, to enable them to overrun a vast empire of Americans. Almagro, however, remained behind, to gather more spoilers together as soon as circumstances would permit, and Pizarro took the command of his troop, and landed in the Bay of St. Matthew, in the north of the kingdom. He resolved to conduct his march southward so near to the coast as to keep up the communication with his vessels; and falling upon the peaceable inhabitants, he went on fighting, fording rivers, wading through hot sands, and inflicting so many miseries upon his own followers and the natives, as made him look more like an avenging demon than a man. It is not necessary that we should trace very minutely his route. In the province of Coaque they plundered the people of an immense quantity of gold and silver. From the inhabitants of the island of Puna, he met with a desperate resistance, which cost him six months to subdue, and obliged him to halt at Tumbez, to restore the health of his men. Here he received a reinforcement of troops from Nicaragua, commanded by Sebastian Benalcazor, and Hernando Soto. Having also his brothers, Ferdinand, Juan, and Gonzalo, and his uncle Francisco de Alcantara, with him in this expedition, he pushed forwards towards Caxamalca, destroying and laying waste before him. Fortunately for him, that peace and unity which had continued for four hundred years in Peru, was now broken by two contending monarchs, and as unfortunately for the assertion of Robertson, that the Peruvians were unwarlike, they were at this moment in the very midst of all the fury of a civil war. The late Inca, Huana Capac, had added Quito to the realm, and at his death, had left that province to Atahualpa, his son by the daughter of the conquered king of Quito. His eldest son, who ascended the throne of Peru, demanded homage of Atahualpa or surrender of the throne of Quito; but Atahualpa was too bold and ambitious a prince for that, and the consequence was a civil contest. So engrossed were the combatants in this warfare, that they had no time to watch, much less to oppose, the progress of the Spaniards. Pizarro had, therefore, advanced into the very heart of the kingdom when Atahualpa had vanquished his brother, put him in prison, and taken possession of Peru. Having been solicited during the latter part of his march by both parties to espouse their cause, and holding himself in readiness to act as best might suit his interests, he no sooner found Atahualpa in the ascendant, than he immediately avowed himself as his partizan, and declared that he was hastening to his aid. Atahualpa was in no condition to repulse him. He was in the midst of the confusions necessarily existing on the immediate termination of a civil war. His brother, though his captive, was still held by the Peruvians to be their rightful monarch, and it might be of the utmost consequence to his security to gain such extraordinary and fearful allies. The poor Inca had speedy cause to rue the alliance. Pizarro determined, on the very first visit of Atahualpa to him in Caxamalca, to seize him as Cortez had seized on Montezuma. He did not wait to imitate the more artful policy of Cortez, but trusted to the now too well known ascendency of the Spanish arms, to take him without ceremony. He and his followers now saw the amazing wealth of the country, and were impatient to seize it. The capture of the unsuspecting Inca is one of the most singular incidents in the history of the world; a mixture of such naked villany, and impudent mockery of religion, as has scarcely a parallel even in the annals of these Spanish missionaries of the sword—these red-cross knights of plunder. He invited Atahualpa to an interview in Caxamalca, and having drawn up his forces round the square in which he resided, awaited the approach of his victim. The following is Robertson’s relation of the event:—

“Early in the morning the Peruvian camp was all in motion. But as Atahualpa was solicitous to appear with the greatest splendour and magnificence in his first interview with the strangers, the preparations for this were so tedious, that the day was far advanced before he began his march. Even then, lest the order of the procession should be deranged, he moved so slowly, that the Spaniards became impatient, and apprehensive that some suspicion of their intention might be the cause of this delay. In order to remove this, Pizarro dispatched one of his officers with fresh assurances of his friendly disposition. At length the Inca approached. First of all appeared four hundred men, in an uniform dress, as harbingers to clear the way before him. He himself, sitting on a throne or couch, adorned with plumes of various colours, and almost covered with plates of gold and silver, enriched with precious stones, was carried on the shoulders of his principal attendants. Behind him came some chief officers of his court, carried in the same manner. Several bands of singers and dancers accompanied this cavalcade; and the whole plain was covered with troops, amounting to more than thirty thousand men.

“As the Inca drew near to the Spanish quarters, Father Vincent Valverde, chaplain to the expedition, advanced with a crucifix in one hand and a breviary in the other, and in a Jong discourse explained to him the doctrine of the creation; the fall of Adam; the incarnation, the sufferings, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; the appointment of St. Peter as God’s vicegerent on earth; the transmission of his apostolic power by succession to the Popes; the donation made to the king of Castile by Pope Alexander, of all the regions in the New World. In consequence of all this, he required Atahualpa to embrace the Christian faith; to acknowledge the supreme jurisdiction of the Pope, and to submit to the king of Castile as his lawful sovereign; promising, if he complied instantly with his requisition, that the Castilian monarch would protect his dominions, and permit him to continue in the exercise of his royal authority; but if he should impiously refuse to obey this summons, he denounced war against him in his master’s name, and threatened him with the most dreadful effect of his vengeance.

“This strange harangue, unfolding deep mysteries, and alluding to unknown facts, of which no powers of eloquence could have conveyed at once a distinct idea to an American, was so lamely translated by an unskilful interpreter, little acquainted with the idiom of the Spanish tongue, and incapable of expressing himself with propriety in the language of the Inca, that its general tenor was altogether incomprehensible to Atahualpa. Some parts of it, of more obvious meaning, filled him with astonishment and indignation. His reply, however, was temperate. He began with observing, that he was lord of the dominions over which he reigned by hereditary succession; and added, that he could not conceive how a foreign priest should pretend to dispose of territories which did not belong to him; that if such a preposterous grant had been made, he, who was the rightful possessor, refused to confirm it. That he had no inclination to renounce the religious institutions established by his ancestors; nor would he forsake the service of the Sun, the immortal divinity whom he and his people revered, in order to worship the God of the Spaniards who was subject to death. That, with respect to other matters contained in this discourse, as he had never heard of them before, and did not understand their meaning, he desired to know where the priest had learned things so extraordinary. “In this book,” answered Valverde, reaching out to him his Breviary. The Inca opened it eagerly, and turning over the leaves, lifted it to his ear. “This,” said he, “is silent; it tells me nothing;” and threw it with disdain to the ground. The enraged monk, running towards his countrymen, cried out, ‘To arms! Christians, to arms! The word of God is insulted; avenge this profanation on these impious dogs!’

“Pizarro, who, during this long conference, had with difficulty restrained his soldiers, eager to seize the rich spoils of which they had now so near a view, immediately gave the signal of assault. At once the martial music struck up, the cannon and muskets began to fire, the horses sallied out fiercely to the charge; the infantry rushed on, sword in hand. The Peruvians, astonished at the suddenness of an attack which they did not expect, and dismayed with the destructive effects of the fire-arms, and the irresistible impression of the cavalry, fled with universal consternation on every side, without attempting either to annoy the enemy or to defend themselves. Pizarro, at the head of his chosen band, advanced directly towards the Inca; and though his nobles crowded round him with officious zeal, and fell in numbers at his feet, while they vied with one another in sacrificing their own lives that they might cover the sacred person of their sovereign, the Spaniards soon penetrated to the royal seat, and Pizarro seizing the Inca by the arm, dragged him to the ground, and carried him as a prisoner to his quarters. The fate of the monarch increased the precipitate flight of his followers. The Spaniards pursued them towards every quarter, and, with deliberate and unrelenting barbarity, continued to slaughter the wretched fugitives, who never once offered to resist. The carnage did not cease till the close of the day. Above four thousand Peruvians were killed. Not a single Spaniard fell, nor was one wounded, but Pizarro himself, whose hand was slightly hurt by one of his own soldiers, while struggling eagerly to lay hold on the Inca.

“The plunder of the field was rich beyond any idea which the Spaniards had yet formed concerning the wealth of Peru, and they were so transported with the value of their acquisition, as well as the greatness of their success, that they passed the night in the extravagant exultation natural to indigent adventurers on such an extraordinary change of fortune.”

Daring, perfidious, and every way extraordinary as this capture of the Inca was, his ransom was still more extraordinary. Observing the insatiable passion of the Spaniards for gold, he offered to fill the room in which he was kept with vessels of gold as high as he could reach. This room was twenty-two feet in length, and sixteen in breadth; and the proposal being immediately agreed to, though never for a moment meant on the part of the Spaniards to be fulfilled, a line was drawn along the walls all round the room to mark the height to which the gold was to rise. Instantly the Inca, in the simple joy of his heart at the hope of a liberty which he was never to enjoy, issued orders to his subjects to bring in the gold; and from day to day the faithful Indians came in laden from all quarters with the vessels of gold. The sight must have been more like a fairy dream, than any earthly reality. The splendid and amazing mass, such as no mortal eyes on any other occasion probably ever witnessed, soon rose to near the stipulated height, and the avarice of the soldiers, and the joy of Atahualpa rose rapidly with it. But the exultation of the Inca received a speedy and cruel blow. He learned that fresh troops of Spaniards had arrived, and that those in whose hands he was, had been tampering with Huascar, his brother, in his prison. Alarmed lest, after all, they should, on proffer of a higher price, liberate his brother, and detain himself, the wretched Inca was driven in desperation to the crime of dooming his brother to death. He issued his order, and it was done. Scarcely was this effected, when the Spaniards, unable to wait for the gold quite reaching the mark, determined to part it; and orders were given to melt the greater portion of it down. They chose the festival of St. James, the patron saint of Spain, as the most suitable to distinguish by this act of national plunder, and proceeded to appropriate the following astonishing sums.—Certain of the richest vessels were set aside first for the crown. Then the fifth claimed by the crown was set apart. Then a hundred thousand pesos, equal to as many pounds sterling, were given to the newly arrived army of Almagro. Then Pizarro and his followers divided amongst them, one million five hundred and twenty-eight thousands five hundred pesos: every horseman obtained above eight thousand, and every footman four!

Imagine the privates of an army of foot soldiers pocketing for prize-money, each four thousand pounds! the troopers each eight thousand! But enormous as this seems, there is no doubt that it would have been vastly more had the natives been as confident in the faith of the Spaniards as they had reason to be of the reverse. The Inca, Garcillasso, and some of the Spanish historians, tell us that on the Spaniards displaying their greedy spirit of plunder, vast quantities of treasure vanished from public view, and never could be discovered again. Amongst these were the celebrated emerald of Manta, which was worshipped as a divinity; was as large as an ostrich egg, and had smaller emeralds offered to it as its children; and the chain of gold made by order of Huana Capac, to surround the square at Cuzco on days of solemn dancing, and was in length seven hundred feet, and of the thickness of a man’s wrist.

The Inca having fulfilled, as far as the impatience of the Spaniards would permit him, his promises, now demanded his freedom. Poor man! his tyrants never intended to give him any other freedom than the freedom of death. They held him merely as a lure, by which to draw all the gold and the power of his kingdom into their hands. But as, after this transaction, they could not hope to play upon him much further, they resolved to dispatch him. The new adventurers who had arrived with Almagro were clamorous for his destruction, because they looked upon him as a puppet in the hands of Pizarro, by which he would draw away gold that might otherwise fall into their hands. The poor Inca too, by an unwitting act, drew this destruction more suddenly on his own head. Struck with admiration at the art of writing, he got a soldier to write the word Dios (God) on his thumb-nail, and shewing it to everybody that came in, saw with surprise that every man knew in a moment the meaning of it. When Pizarro, however, came, he could not read it, and blushed and shewed confusion. Atahualpa saw, with a surprise and contempt which he could not conceal, that Pizarro was more ignorant than his own soldiers; and the base tyrant, stung to the quick with the affront which he might suppose designed, resolved to rid himself of the Inca without delay. For this purpose, he resorted to the mockery of a trial; appointed himself, and his companion in arms, Almagro, the very man who had demanded his death, judges, and employed as interpreter, an Indian named Philippillo, who was notoriously desirous of the Inca’s death, that he might obtain one of his wives. This precious tribunal charged the unfortunate Inca with being illegitimate; with having dethroned and put to death his brother; with being an idolater—the faith of the country; with having a number of concubines—the custom of the country too; with having embezzled the royal treasures, which he had done to satisfy these guests, and for which he ought now to have been free, had these wretches had but the slightest principle of right left in them. On these and similar charges they condemned him to be burnt alive! and sent him instantly to execution, only commuting his sentence into strangling instead of burning, on his agreeing, in his terror and astonishment, to acknowledge the Christian faith! What an idea he must have had of the Christian faith!

The whole career of Pizarro and his comrades, and especially this last unparalleled action, exhibit them as such thoroughly desperado characters—so hardened into every thing fiendly, so utterly destitute of every thing human, that nothing but the most fearful scene of misery and crime could follow whenever they were on the scene; and Peru, indeed, soon was one wide field of horror, confusion, and oppression. The Spaniards had neither faith amongst themselves, nor mercy towards the natives, and therefore an army of wolves fiercely devouring one another, or Pandemonium in its fury can only present an image of Peru under the herds of its first invaders. It is not my province to follow the quarrels of the conquerors further than is necessary to shew their effect on the natives; and therefore I shall now pass rapidly over matters that would fill a volume.

Pizarro set up a son of Atahualpa as Inca, and held him as a puppet in his hands; but the Peruvians set up Manco Capac, brother of Huana; and as if the example of the perfidy of the Spaniards had already communicated itself to the heretofore orderly Peruvians, the general whom Atahualpa had left in Quito, rose and slew the remaining family of his master, and assumed that province to himself. The Spaniards rejoiced in this confusion, in which they were sure to be the gainers. The adventurers who had shared amongst them the riches of the royal room, had now reached Spain with Ferdinand Pizarro at their head, bearing to the court the dazzling share which fell to its lot. Honours were showered on Pizarro and his fellow-marauders,—fresh hosts of harpies set out for this unfortunate land, and Pizarro marching to Cuzco, made tremendous slaughter amongst the Indians, and took possession of that capital and a fresh heap of wealth more enormous than the plunder of Atahualpa’s room. To keep his fellow officers, thus flushed with intoxicating deluges of affluence, in some degree quiet, he encouraged them to undertake different expeditions against the natives. Benalcazar fell on Quito,—Almagro on Chili; but the Peruvians were now driven to desperation, and taking the opportunity of the absence of those forces, they rose, and attacked their oppressors in various quarters. The consequence was what may readily be supposed—after keeping the Spaniards in terror for some time, they were routed and slaughtered by thousands. But no sooner was this over than the Spaniards turned their arms against each other. “Civil discord,” says Robertson, “never raged with a more fell spirit than amongst the Spaniards in Peru. To all the passions which usually envenom contests amongst countrymen, avarice was added, and rendered their enmity more ravenous. Eagerness to seize the valuable forfeitures expected upon the death of every opponent, shut the door against mercy. To be wealthy, was of itself sufficient to expose a man to accusation, or to subject him to punishment. On the slightest suspicions, Pizarro condemned many of the most opulent inhabitants in Peru to death. Carvajal, without seeking for any pretext to justify his cruelty, cut off many more. The number of those who suffered by the hand of the executioner, was not much inferior to what fell in the field; and the greater part was condemned without the formality of any legal trial.”

Providence exhibited a great moral lesson in the fate of these discoverers of the new world. As they shewed no regard to the feelings or the rights of their fellow men, as they outraged and disgraced every principle of the sacred religion which they professed, scarcely one of them but was visited with retributive vengeance even in this life; and many of them fell miserably in the presence of the wretched people they had so ruthlessly abused, and not a few by each other’s hands. We have already shewn the fortunes of Columbus and Cortez; that of Pizarro and his lawless accomplices is still more striking and awful. Almagro, one of the three original speculators of Panama, was the first to pay the debt of his crimes. A daring and rapacious soldier, but far less artful than Pizarro, he had, from the hour that Pizarro deceived him at the Spanish court, and secured honours and commands to himself at his expense, always looked with suspicious eyes upon his proceedings, and sought advancement rather from his own sword than from his old but perfidious comrade. Chili being allotted to him, he claimed the city of Cuzco as his capital;—a bloody war with the Pizarros was the consequence; Almagro was defeated, taken prisoner, and put to death, being strangled in prison and afterwards publicly beheaded. But Pizarro’s own fate was hastened by this of his old comrade. The friends of Almagro rallied round young Almagro his son. They suddenly attacked Pizarro in his house at noon, and on a Sunday; slew his maternal uncle Alcantara, and several of his other friends, and stabbed him mortally in the throat. The younger Almagro was taken in arms against the new governor, Vaca de Castro, and publicly beheaded in Cuzco; five hundred of these adventurers falling in the battle itself, and forty others perishing with him on the scaffold. Gonzalo Pizarro, after maintaining a war against the viceroy Nugnez Vela, defeating and killing him, was himself defeated by Gasca, and put to death, with Carvajal and some other of the most notorious offenders.

Such were the crimes and the fate of the Spaniards in Peru. Robertson, who relates the deeds of the Spanish adventurers in general with a coolness that is marvellous, thus describes the character of these men.

“The ties of honour, which ought to be held sacred amongst soldiers, and the principle of integrity, interwoven as thoroughly in the Spanish character as in that of any nation, seem to have been equally forgotten. Even the regard for decency, and the sense of shame were totally lost. During their dissensions, there was hardly a Spaniard in Peru who did not abandon the party which he had originally espoused, betray the associates with whom he had united, and violate the engagements under which he had come. The viceroy Nugnez Vela was ruined by the treachery of Cepeda and the other judges of the royal audience, who were bound by the duties of their function to have supported his authority. The chief advisers and companions of Gonzalo Pizarro’s revolt were the first to forsake him, and submit to his enemies. His fleet was given up to Gasca by the man whom he had singled out among his officers to entrust with that important command. On the day that was to decide his fate, an army of veterans, in sight of the enemy, threw down their arms without striking a blow, and deserted a leader who had often led them to victory.... It is only where men are far removed from the seat of government, where the restraints of law and order are little felt; where the prospect of gain is unbounded, and where immense wealth may cover the crimes by which it is acquired, that we can find any parallel to the cruelty, the rapaciousness, the perfidy and corruption prevalent amongst the Spaniards in Peru.”

While such was their conduct to each other, we may very well imagine what it was to the unhappy natives. These fine countries, indeed, were given up to universal plunder and violence. The people were everywhere pursued for their wealth, their dwellings ransacked without mercy, and themselves seized on as slaves. As in the West Indian Islands and in Mexico, they were driven to the mines, and tasked without regard to their strength,—and like them, they perished with a rapidity that alarmed even the Court of Spain, and induced them to send out officers to inquire, and to stop this waste of human life. Las Casas again filled Spain with his loud remonstrances, but with no better success. When their viceroys, visitors, and superintendents arrived, and published their ordinances, requiring the Indians to be treated as free subjects, violent outcries and furious remonstrances, similar to what England has in modern times received from the West Indies when she has wished to lighten the chains of the negro, were the immediate result. The oppressors cried out that they should all be ruined,—that they were “robbed of their just rights,” and there was no prospect but of general insurrection, unless they might continue to devour the blood and sinews of the unfortunate Indians. One man, the President Gasca, a simple ecclesiastic, exhibited a union of talents and integrity most remarkable and illustrious amid such general corruption; he went out poor and he returned so, from a country where the temptations to wink at evil were boundless; and he effected a great amount of good in the reduction of civil disorder; but the protection of the Indians was beyond even his power and sagacity, and he left them to their fate.