The Principal Officers Who
Were Along With Him, Strongly Urged Him To This Measure, Particularly
Gomez Alvarado And Diego Alvarado,
Brother and uncle of Don Pedro Alvarado
the governor of Guatimala, and Rodrigo Orgognez; some of whom were eager
to
Procure settlements in Peru, and others were desirous of gaining
establishments in Chili. To succeed in their design, as reports of the
insurrection in Peru had reached Chili, they instructed some Indian
interpreters to inform Almagro that the governor Francisco Pizarro and
most of the Spaniards in Peru had been slain by the Peruvians. Urged by
all these considerations, Almagro marched back into Peru, and even arrived
within six leagues of Cuzco without giving notice to Ferdinand Pizarro of
his motions or intentions[6]. Almagro made overtures to the Inca Manco
Capac for an accommodation, offering to forgive him all the injury he had
already done to the Spaniards, in consideration of joining his party and
assisting him to become master of Cuzco, of which he pretended that he had
been appointed governor by the king of Spain. The Inca proposed an
interview between them under pretence of settling the terms of an
agreement, to which Almagro consented without suspecting any treachery,
and went accordingly with a part only of his troops to the place appointed
for the conference, leaving the rest of his force under the command of
Juan de Saavedra. Taking advantage of this confidence, the Inca attacked
Almagro by surprize with extreme fury, and even killed and wounded several
of his men.
In the mean time, Ferdinand Pizarro received notice of the arrival of
Almagro, and that Juan de Saavedra was left at the village of Hurcos in
command of the troops in the absence of Almagro. He went therefore from
Cuzco at the head of an hundred and seventy of his best troops, in hope of
being able to prevail on Saavedra and the rest to abandon the party of
Almagro, or to fall upon them by surprize and make them prisoners. But
Saavedra got timely notice of his approach, and drew up his forces,
amounting to three hundred Spaniards, in an advantageous situation for his
reception. When the two parties were just about to engage, Ferdinand
Pizarro sent a message to Saavedra proposing a private interview, that
they might endeavour to agree upon an accommodation, to which the other
consented. As this conference was entirely between themselves, it is
difficult to know with any certainty what passed; but it was reported that
Ferdinand endeavoured to persuade Saavedra to join him with the troops
under his command, for which he offered a large recompense in gold; but
that Saavedra, like a man of honour, peremptorily refused to betray his
general.
On the return of Almagro from his affair with the Inca, he rejoined the
troops under Saavedra, and marched for Cuzco with his whole force. While
on the march, he made prisoners of four horsemen who had been sent out by
Ferdinand Pizarro to reconnoitre, from whom he learnt all the particulars
of the insurrection of the Peruvians, who had killed more than six hundred
Spaniards, and had burnt down a great part of the city of Cuzco, on which
news Almagro was very sensibly afflicted.
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