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This work has lately been translated into English: had it been carefully and judiciously abridged it would have been acceptable, but it is tiresome from its extreme minuteness on uninteresting points. Historia del Descubriniento y Conquesta del Peru. Par August de Zarate. Anvers, 1555. 8vo.
At this time, the licentiate Ortiz de Zarate went from his house towards the palace, meaning to have joined the viceroy; but meeting the other oydors on his way, and seeing that it was impossible for him to prosecute his original design, he accompanied them to the church.
The name of Zarate naturally suggests that of Fernandez, for both were laborers in the same field of history. Diego Fernandez de Palencia, or Palentino, as he is usually called, from the place of his birth, came over to Peru, and served as a private in the royal army raised to quell the insurrections that broke out after Gasca's return to Castile.
One of his assailants, in a spirit of self-devotion, attracted to himself the blows of Pizarro. Meanwhile the other conspirators made their way in and attacked him with such fury that he could not parry all the blows, being so exhausted that he could scarcely wield his sword. "Thus," says Zarate, "they made an end, and succeeded in killing him by a thrust in the throat.
Zarate added several things of a similar nature; to all of which the only answer given by the council of officers, which he was directed to carry back to the judges was, "that it was indispensably necessary for the well being of the colony, that they should appoint Gonzalo Pizarro governor of Peru.
Although Garcilasso de la Vega gives full warrant for this account of the proposals of the insurgents, Zarate, who was then resident in a public character in Peru, makes no mention of any such plan having been agitated, which could hardly have happened without his knowledge: It is probable therefore that these additional circumstances were invented by the enemies of Gonzalo after his fall, on purpose to blacken his memory by the imputation of even deeper crimes than those he was actually guilty of."
Zarate, a third judge, who had, from the first, protested against the violent measures of his colleagues, was confined to his house by a mortal illness;2 and Tepeda, the remaining magistrate, Gonzalo now proposed to send back to Castile with such an account of the late transactions as should vindicate his own conduct in the eyes of the emperor.
"Also," says Zarate, "there was perhaps no other country in the world where the obedience and submission of the subjects was carried further.
Accordingly, to the north of Lima, and about the indicated distance, there is a sea-port or coast town named Huaura, certainly the place meant by Zarate. Hua and Gua are often inchanged by the Spaniards in the names of places in America, probably from the g having a guttural sound, or strong aspiration.
For this purpose all the necessary dispatches were prepared, which were signed by all the judges of the royal audience, excepting Ortiz de Zarate, who refused his concurrence.
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