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"It is the sole property, Mr. Fortescue, of my brother and myself. I own two-thirds of it. It is lost treasure recovered by us from the sea, where it has been lying ever since the conquest of Peru by Pizarro." "There is no mistake about this? The word pounds is not a mistake for ounces? although even that would represent a very large sum."
Sir WALTER RAWLEIGH, according to a family tradition, when a young man, was perpetually reading and conversing on the discoveries of Columbus, and the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro. His character, as well as the great events of his life, seem to have been inspired by his favourite histories; to pass beyond the discoveries of the Spaniards became a passion, and the vision of his life.
Thence he flowered into a sybarite. Coming to great wealth with the discoveries of Columbus and the conquests of Pizarro and Cortes, he proceeded to enjoy its fruits according to his fancy and the fashion of the times. He erected massive shrines to his deities. He reared noble palaces. He built about his cathedrals and his castles what were then thought to be great cities, walled and fortified.
Orders were likewise transmitted to all the cities, commanding all loyal subjects to take up arms in the service of his majesty, and a general pardon was proclaimed to all who had been engaged in the late rebellions, under Gonzalo Pizarro, Don Sebastian de Castilla, and others, provided they joined the royal army within a certain given time.
Pizarro, with the rest of the force, would remain in the neighborhood of the river, as he was assured by the Indian prisoners, that not far in the interior was an open reach of country, where he and his men could find comfortable quarters. This arrangement was instantly put in execution. We will first accompany the intrepid pilot in his cruise towards the south.
All which circumstances plainly convinced the righteous followers of Cortes and Pizarro that these miscreants had no title to the soil that they infested that they were a perverse, illiterate, dumb, beardless, black-seed mere wild beasts of the forests and, like them, should either be subdued or exterminated.
Whole provinces, conquered and peopled by the followers of Cortez and Pizarro, have within the last fifty years been retaken from them by the Indians: and it would be very easy to prove, that had the descendants of the Spanish conquerors, been left to themselves, another half century would have seen them driven from that very continent which their forefathers so easily conquered and so cruelly kept.
From this time, Gonzalo Pizarro conducted himself with much more pride and haughtiness than formerly, conceiving high ideas of his own importance from these public ceremonials of respect, as usually happens to men of feeble minds on any sudden elevation. He had a guard for his person of eighty halberdiers, besides several horsemen, who acompanied him wherever he went.
Atahualpa accepted with dignity the fortunes of war; and as a ransom offered to fill a large room in which he one day was, with vessels of gold, as high as he could reach. Pizarro agreed to the proposal, and by the Inca's orders messengers were despatched to Cuzco and other important cities of the empire, for the required booty.
Pizarro sent back the monk with directions for Acosta to join him at a certain place.
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