VI. 1534. BOOK racter, to introduce a form of regular government into the extensive provinces fubject to his authority. Though ill qualified by his education to enter into any difquifition concerning the principles of civil policy, and little accustomed by his former habits of life to attend to its arrangements, his natural fagacity fupplied the want both of science and experience. He diftributed the country into various districts; he appointed proper magiftrates to prefide in each; and established regulations concerning the administration of justice, the collection of the royal revenue, the working of the mines, and the treatment of the Indians, extremely fimple, but well calculated to promote the public profperity. But, though, for the prefent, he adapted his plan to the infant state of his colony, his afpiring mind looked Foundation forward to its future grandeur. He confidered himself as laying the foundation of a great empire, and. deliberated long, and with much folicitude, in what place he should fix the feat of government. Cuzco, the imperial city of the Incas, was fituated in a corner of the empire, above four hundred miles from the fea, and much farther from Quito, a province of whose value he had formed an high idea. No other fettlement of the Peruvians was fo confiderable as to merit the name of a town, or to allure the Spaniards to fix their refidence in it. of Lima. But, VI. 1534. 1535. January 18. in marching through the country, Pizarro had BOOK been struck with the beauty and fertility of the valley of Rimac, one of the most extenfive and beft cultivated in Peru. There, on the banks of a small river, of the fame name with the vale which it waters and enriches, at the distance of fix miles from Callao, the most commodious harbour in the Pacific Ocean, he founded a city which he destined to be the capital of his government. He gave it the name of Ciudad de los Reyes, either from the circumstance of having laid the first stone, at that feafon when the church celebrates the festival of the Three Kings, or, as is more probable, in honour of Juana and Charles, the joint fovereigns of Caftile. This name it still retains among the Spaniards, in all legal and formal deeds; but it is better known to foreigners by that of Lima, a corruption of the ancient appellation of the valley in which it is fituated. Under his infpection, the buildings advanced with such rapidity, that it soon affumed the form of a city, which, by a magnificent palace that he erected for himself, and by the ftately houfes built by feveral of his officers, gave, even in its infancy, fome indication of its fubfequent grandeur. ← Herrera, dec. 5. lib. vi. c. 12. lib. vii. c. 13. Calancho Coronica, lib. i. c. 37. Barneuvo, Lima fundata, ii. 294. IN BOOK VI. 1535 vades Chili. IN confequence of what had been agreed with Pizarro, Almagro began his march towards Almagroin Chili; and as he poffeffed in an eminent degree the virtues most admired by foldiers, boundless liberality and fearlefs courage, his standard was followed by five hundred and seventy men, the greatest body of Europeans that had hitherto been affembled in Peru. From impatience to finish the expedition, or from that contempt of hardship and danger acquired by all the Spaniards who had ferved long in America, Almagro, instead of advancing along the level country on the coast, chose to march across the mountains by a route that was fhorter indeed, but almost impracticable. In this attempt his troops were exposed to every calamity which men can suffer, from fatigue, from famine, and from the rigour of the climate in thofe elevated regions of the torrid zone, where the degree of cold is hardly inferior to what is felt within the polar circle. Many of them perifhed; and the furvivors, when they defcended into the fertile plains of Chili, had new difficulties to encounter. They found there a race of men very different from the people of Peru, intrepid, hardy, independent, and in their bodily conftitution, as well as vigour of fpirit, nearly refembling the warlike tribes in North America. Though filled with wonder at the firft appearance of the Spaniards, and ftill more VI. 1535 more astonished at the operations of their cavalry BOOK and the effects of their fire-arms, the Chilese foon recovered fo far from their furprize, as not only to defend themselves with obftinacy, but to attack their new enemies with more determined fierceness than any American nation had hitherto discovered. The Spaniards, however, continued to penetrate into the country, and collected fome confiderable quantities of gold; but were fo far from thinking of making any fettlement amidst fuch formidable neighbours, that, in spite of all the experience and valour of their leader, the final iffue of the expedition fill remained extremely dubious, when they were recalled from it by an unexpected revolution in Peru. The caufes of this important event I shall endeavour to trace to their fource. rection of vians. So many adventurers had flocked to Peru An infurfrom every Spanish colony in America, and all the Peruwith fuch high expectations of accumulating independent fortunes at once, that, to men poffeffed with notions fo extravagant, any mention of acquiring wealth gradually, and by schemes of patient industry, would have been not only a Vega, Zarate, lib. iii. c. 1. Gomara Hift. c. 131. p. 2. lib. ii. c. 20, Ovalle Hift. de Chile, lib. iv. c. 15, &c. Herrera, dec. 5. lib. vi. c. 9. lib. x. c. 1, &c. dif Its vife, BOOK difappointment, but an infult. In order to find VI. occupation for men who could not with fafety be 1535. allowed to remain inactive, Pizarro encouraged fome of the moft diftinguished officers who had lately joined him, to invade different provinces of the empire, which the Spaniards had not hitherto vifited. Several large bodies were formed for this purpofe; and about the time that Almagro fet out for Chili, they marched into remote diftricts of the country. No fooner did Manco Capac, the Inca, obferve the inconfiderate fecurity of the Spaniards in thus dispersing their troops, and that only a handful of foldiers remained in Cuzco, under Juan and Gonzalez Pizarro, than he thought that the happy period was at length come for vindicating his own rights, for avenging the wrongs of his country, and extirpating its oppreffors. Though strictly watched by the Spaniards, who allowed him to refide in the palace of his ancestors at Cuzco, he found means of communicating his fcheme to the perfons who were to be entrusted with the execution of it. Among people accustomed to revere their fovereign as a divinity, every hint of his will carries the authority of a command; and they themselves were now convinced, by the daily increase in the number of their invaders, that the fond hopes which they had long entertained of their voluntary departure were altogether |