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Updated: June 3, 2025
There was no reply, and Jimmie piled on another question: "Why did Pedro run away from Shaw's and why did he run away from Chester's camp when he saw me coming from the jungle?" The prisoner gave a quick start, and something like a groan came from his lips. "Is Pedrarias, the man you call Pedro, here on the Isthmus?" he asked. "Sure he is. Didn't he report to you after he got here?"
Not long after this, in the following year, he was succeeded in his government by Don Pedro de los Rios, a cavalier of Cordova. It was the policy of the Castilian Crown to allow no one of the great colonial officers to occupy the same station so long as to render himself formidable by his authority.3 It had, moreover, many particular causes of disgust with Pedrarias.
Pedrarias, the governor, was preparing to lead an expedition in person against a rebellious officer in Nicaragua; and his temper, naturally not the most amiable, was still further soured by this defection of his lieutenant, and the necessity it imposed on him of a long and perilous march.
Well would it have been for the country had not the jealousy of Pedrarias cut short Balboa's career by taking off his head, thus forcing the enterprise to be undertaken by men of coarser mould and meaner clay.
It had not fared well with the expedition of Pedrarias, either, for in six weeks after they landed, over seven hundred of his unacclimated men were dead of fever and other diseases, incident to their lack of precaution and the unhealthy climate of the Isthmus. They had been buried in their brocades, as has been pithily remarked, and forgotten. The condition of the survivors was also precarious.
On the removal of the seat of government across the Isthmus to Panama, Pizarro accompanied Pedrarias, and his name became conspicuous among the cavaliers who extended the line of conquest to the north over the martial tribes of Veragua.
Thus there seemed a great career opening before Balboa at the very moment when adverse fate was gathering darkly around him. Pedrarias had grown jealous of his daring exploits and the fame that seemed his coming meed, and, cherishing treacherous designs, by a crafty message induced him to return to Acla, his new capital.
If the veterans of Antigua had not been on the other side of the Isthmus, Balboa would have been rescued. As it was, the troops of Pedrarias awed the people of Ada and the judicial murder went forward. Balboa was as composed when he mounted the scaffold as he had been when he welcomed Pedrarias.
Unfortunately for Vasco Nuñez, Arbolancha arrived just two months after Pedrarias had sailed. The discovery of the Pacific was the greatest single exploit since the voyage of Columbus. It was impossible for the King to proceed further against Balboa under such circumstances.
It was necessary that the ship should be sent back to Panamá for repairs, but Pizarro did not consider that this place, which they had named Pueblo Quemado, would be a safe resting-place for those who were left behind; so he embarked again for Chicamá, and when he was settled there his treasurer started for Panamá with the gold that had been collected, and instructions to lay before Pedrarias, the governor, a full account of the expedition.
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