III. 1509. BOOK made two voyages as a discoverer, by which he acquired confiderable reputation, but no wealth. But his character for intrepidity and conduct eafily procured him associates, who advanced the money requifite to defray the charges of the expedition. About the fame time, Diego de Nicueffa, who had acquired a large fortune in Hifpaniola, formed a fimilar defign. Ferdinand encouraged both; and though he refused to advance the smallest fum, was extremely liberal of titles and patents. He erected two governments on the continent, one extending from Cape de Vela to the gulf of Darien, and the other from that to Cape Gracias a Dios. The former was given to Ojeda, the latter to Nicueffa. Ojeda fitted out a fhip and two brigantines, with three hundred men; Nicueffa, fix veffels, with seven hundred and eighty men. They failed about the fame time from St. Domingo for their respective governments. In order to give their title to thofe countries fome appearance of validity, feveral of the most eminent divines and lawyers in Spain were employed to prescribe the mode in which they fhould take poffeffion of them'. There is not in the history of mankind any thing more fingular or extravagant than the form which they devised III, 1509. for this purpose. They inftructed thofe in- BOOK vaders, as foon as they landed on the continent, to declare to the natives the principal articles of the Chriftian faith; to acquaint them, in particular, with the supreme jurisdiction of the Pope over all the kingdoms of the earth; to inform them of the grant which this holy pontiff had made of their country to the king of Spain; to require them to embrace the doctrines of that religion which the Spaniards made known to them; and to fubmit to the fovereign whose authority they proclaimed. If the natives refused to comply with this requifition, the terms of which must have been utterly incomprehenfible to uninftructed Indians, then Ojeda and Nicueffa were authorised to attack them with fire and fword; to reduce them, their wives and children, to a state of fervitude; and to compel them by force to recognize the jurisdiction of the church, and the authority of the monarch, to which they would not voluntarily fubject themselves'. afters at tending it. As the inhabitants of the continent could The dif not at once yield affent to doctrines too refined for their uncultivated understandings, and explained to them by interpreters imperfectly ac See NOTE XXIII. quainted BOOK quainted with their language; as they did not III. 1509. conceive how a foreign prieft, of whom they had never heard, could have any right to difpofe of their country, or how an unknown prince fhould claim jurisdiction over them as his fubjects; they fiercely oppofed the new invaders of their territories. Ojeda and Nicueffa endeavoured to effect by force what they could not accomplish by perfuafion. The contemporary writers enter into a very minute detail in relating their tranfactions; but as they made no discovery of importance, nor established any permanent fettlement, their adventures are not entitled to any confiderable place in the general history of a period, where romantic valour, ftruggling with incredible hardships, distinguish every effort of the Spanish arms. They found the natives in those countries of which they went to affume the government, to be of a character very different from that of their countrymen in the islands. They were fierce and warlike. Their arrows were dipped in a poifon so noxious, that every wound was followed with certain death. In one encounter they flew above seventy of Ojeda's followers, and the Spaniards, for the first time, were taught to dread the inhabitants of the New World. Nicueffa was opposed by people equally refolute in defence of their poffeffions. Nothing could 3 foften III. 1509: 1510. foften their ferocity. Though the Spaniards BOOK employed every art to foothe them, and to gain their confidence, they refused to hold any intercourse, or to exchange any friendly office, with men whose refidence among them they confi dered as fatal to their liberty and independence. This implacable enmity of the natives, though it rendered an attempt to establish a settlement in their country extremely difficult as well as dangerous, might have been furmounted at length by the perfeverance of the Spaniards, by the fuperiority of their arms, and their skill in the art of war. But every disaster which can be accumulated upon the unfortunate, combined to complete their ruin. The lofs of their fhips by various accidents upon an unknown coast, the diseases peculiar to a climate the most noxious in all America, the want of provifions, unavoidable in a country imperfectly, cultivated, diffenfion among themselves, and the inceffant hoftilities of the natives, involved them in a fucceffion of calamities, the bare recital of which strikes one with horror. Though they received two confiderable reinforcements from Hifpaniola, the greater part of those who had engaged in this unhappy expedition, perished, in less than a year, in the most extreme mifery. A few who furvived, fettled as a feeble colony at Santa Maria el Antigua, on the gulf of Darien, under VOL, I. T the III. 1510. BOOK the command of Vafco Nugnez de Balboa, who, in the most desperate exigencies, displayed fuch courage and conduct, as first gained the confi dence of his countrymen, and marked him out as their leader in more fplendid and fuccessful undertakings. Nor was he the only adventurer in this expedition who will appear with luftre in more important scenes. Francisco Pizarro was one of Ojeda's companions, and in this school of adverfity acquired or improved the talents which fitted him for the extraordinary actions which he afterwards performed. Her nan Cortes, whofe name became still more famous, had likewife engaged early in this enterprife, which rouzed all the active youth of Hifpaniola to arms; but the good fortune that accompanied him in his fubfequent adventures, interpofed to fave him from the difafters to which his companions were expofed. He was taken ill at St. Domingo before the departure of the fleet, and detained there by a tedious indifpofition". Conquest of NOTWITHSTANDING the unfortunate iffue of this expedition, the Spaniards were not deterred from engaging in new fchemes of a fimilar Herrera, dec. 1. lib. vii. c. 11, &c. Gomara Hift. c. 57, 58, 59. Benzon. Hift. lib. i. c. 19-23. P. Martyr, decad. p. 122. nature. |