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The sacchos was hanged on a tree that he had himself planted, and shot through with arrows in full view of the natives, and the other officers were hanged by Colmenares on scaffolds, to serve as an example to the others. This chastisement of the conspirators so terrified the entire province that there was not a person left to raise a finger against the torrent of Spanish wrath.
Colmenares and his men were so astonished to see the miserable condition of Nicuessa and seventy of his people, who were all that remained with him at Nombre de Dios, that they shed tears. They were lean, ragged, and barefooted, and excited pity by the recital of the intolerable distresses they had undergone, and the numbers of their companions who had already died.
But they did not for that reason escape, for at nightfall the ship of Colmenares sailed away, leaving them to their fate, and it is not known what became of them. Lest I should weary you if I related all the particulars, Most Holy Father, I omit mention of the thousand perilous adventures through which Colmenares finally reached the Gulf of Uraba.
He was a man of large experience; in his youth he had travelled by land and sea over all Europe, and he had taken part in the Italian wars against the French. What decided the colonists to choose Colmenares was the fact that, if he left, they could count on his return, because he had purchased properties in Darien and had spent large sums in planting.
The arrival of Colmenares and his party, gave the Nicuesa faction a decided preponderance; and, taking things in their own hands, they determined to despatch one of the ships, with two representatives of the colony, up the coast in search of the governor. This expedition found Nicuesa without much difficulty. Again the rescuing ship arrived just in time.
On the eve of the ides of October of this year, 1516, Roderigo Colmenares, whom I have above mentioned, and a certain Francisco de la Puente belonging to the troop commanded by Gonzales de Badajoz came to see me. The latter was amongst those who escaped the massacre executed by the cacique Pariza. Colmenares himself left Darien for Spain after the vanquished arrived.
Being the first Almoner and Counsellor of the King's household, Your Holiness has in addition appointed him commissary general for the royal indulgences, and the crusade against the Moors. Quevedo and Colmenares were presented by the Bishop of Burgos to the Catholic King, and the news they brought pleased his Majesty and all his courtiers, because of their extreme novelty.
The third party, being the friends of Balboa, wished to continue the present frame of government; but if the majority were for a single commander, they insisted that Balboa ought to have the command. In the midst of these disputes, Roderic Enriquez de Colmenares arrived with two ships, having on board provisions, military stores, and seventy men.
This man was a judge, and had almost been chosen by the colonists as an envoy in place of his friend Colmenares; and indeed he would have been elected but that one of his companions explained that he had a wife at Madrid. It was feared, therefore, that the tears of his wife might prevent him from ever returning, so Colmenares, being free, was chosen as the associate of Quevedo.
Puffed up by vanity, he sent a guard in advance, and had others to accompany and follow him. He chose Colmenares as his associate and companion. From the outset of this expedition he determined to seize everything he could find in the territory of the neighbouring caciques, and he began by marching along the shore of the district of Coiba, of which we have already spoken.
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