find three names particularly celebrated: A. D. these are Francisco Pizarro, Diego de Al1524. magro, and Hernando Luque. Pizarro

was the natural son of a gentleman of an honourable family, by a very low woman: his education and prospects were so totally neglected, that when bordering on manhood he was in no higher employment than a keeper of hogs. But the aspiring mind of this young man suddenly abandoned his charge: he enlisted as a soldier, and, having served several years in Italy, embarked for America, where he very soon distinguished himself. Almagro had as little to boast of his descent as Pizarro. The one was a bastard, the other a foundling. Bred, like his companion, in the camp, he yielded not to him in the qualities of valour, activity, or insurmountable constancy in enduring the hardships inseparable from military service in the New World. In Almagro these virtues were accompanied with openness, generosity, and candour: in Pizarro, they were united with the address, the craft, and the dissimulation of a politician. Hernando de Luque was an ecclesiastic, who acted both as a priest and schoolmaster at Panama, and had acquired riches that inspired him with thoughts of rising to greater eminence. Such were the men destined to overturn one of the most extensive empires on the face of the earth. Their confederacy for this purpose was authorzied by Pedrarias, the governor of Panama. Each engaged to employ his whole fortune in the adventure. Pizarro, who was the least wealthy, offered to take the department of the greatest fatigue and danger, and to command in person the armament which was to go first upon discovery. Almagro was to conduct the supplies of provisions,

and reinforcements of troops, of which Pizarro might stand in need; and Luque was to remain at Panama to negociate with the governor, and superintend whatever was carrying on for the general interest. Luque celebrated mass, divided a consecrated host into three parts, and, reserving one for himself, gave the other two to his associates; of which they partook, and thus, in the name of the Prince of Peace, ratified a contract of which plunder, bloodshed, and every enormity, were the objects.

1524.

Pizarro set sail from Panama November the 14th, with a single ship and 112 A. D. men; and so little was he acquainted with the peculiarities of the climate, that he spent two years in sailing from Panama to the northern extremity of Peru, a voyage which is now frequently performed in a fortnight. He landed, and found that the wealth of the country was as great as he imagined; and that the resistance he was likely to meet in endeavouring to possess himself of it, would be full as considerable. At Tumbez, a place about three degrees south of the line, Pizarro and his companions feasted their eyes with the first view of the opulence and civilization of the Peruvian empire. This place was distinguished for its stately temple, and a palace of the incas or sovereigns of the country. But what chiefly attracted their notice was such a show of gold and silver, not only in the ornaments of their persons and temples, but in several vessels and utensils for common use, formed of those precious metals, as left no room to doubt that they abounded with profusion there. Having explored the country sufficiently to satisfy his own mind, Pizarro procured two of their llamas, or tame cattle, to which the Spaniards gave the name of sheep, some vessels

of gold and silver, and two young men whom he intended to bring up as interpreters; and with these he arrived at Panama towards the close of the

third year from the time of his departure. A. D. No adventurer of the age suffered hard1527. ships or encountered dangers which equalled those to which he was exposed, during this long period. The patience with which he endured the one, and the fortitude with which he surmounted the other, are said to exceed whatever is recorded even in the history of the New World, where so many romantic displays of those virtues occur. But neither Pizarro nor his associate were deterred from the prosecution of their scheme.

It was agreed that Pizarro should go into Spain to release themselves from the government of Pedrarias, and to obtain the grant of whatever they should conquer. Pizarro was to be chief governor, with the property of 200 leagues along the seacoast; Almagro, they agreed, should be adelanto, or king's lieutenant; and Luque, who was a priest, was to be first bishop and protector of the Indians. The other profits of the enterprise were to be equally divided. Pizarro solicited only his own suit at court, and obtained for himself alone, the property of the land, the government, the lieutenancy, and in short, every thing he was capable as a layman of taking; Almagro was forgotten; and to Luque was left the eventual bishopric. This breach of faith had nearly ruined the scheme : but Pizarro knew how to retreat; he satisfied Almagro, and a reconciliation was effected.

Pizarro completed his next voyage from Panama to the bay of St. Matthew in thirteen days. He advanced by land as quickly as possible towards

Peru. At the province of Coaque he surprised the natives, and seized their vessels of gold and silver to the amount of several thousand pounds sterling. Delighted with this spoil, he instantly dispatched one of his ships with a large remittance to Almagro, and another to Nicaragua, with a considerable sum to several persons of influence in that province, in hopes of alluring adventurers by this early display of the wealth which he had acquired. In the mean time he continued his march along the coast, meeting with scarcely any resistance till he arrived at the island of Puna in the bay of Guayquil. Here he spent six months in reducing the inhabitants to subjection. From A. D. Puna he proceeded to Tumbez, and from thence to the river Piura, near the mouth of which he established the first Spanish colony in Peru, to which he gave the name of St. Michael.

1532.

When the Spaniards invaded Peru, the dominions of its sovereigns extended in length from north to south 1500 miles along the Pacific Ocean. Its breadth was much less considerable, being uniformly bounded by the vast ridge of the Andes, which stretched from its one extremity to the other. The empire was governed by a race of kings, or incas. The twelfth in succession was then on the throne. The first of this race, named Mango Capac, was a man of great genius, and with the assistance of Mama Ocollo, laid the foundations of a city, civilized a barbarous people, and instructed them in useful arts. They declared themselves to be children of the Sun, and that they were sent by their beneficent parent to instruct and reclaim them.

When the Spaniards first visited the coast of Peru, Huana Capac was seated on the throne. By

him the kingdom of Quito was subjected; a conquest of such extent and importance as almost doubled the power of the Peruvian empire. He mar. ried the daughter of the vanquished monarch of Quito, by whom he had a son named Atahualpa, whom on his death at Quito, he appointed successor in that kingdom, leaving the rest to Huascar, his eldest son, by a mother of the royal race. Huascar, discontented with his father's will, required his brother to renounce the government of Quito and to acknowledge him as his lawful superior, which Atahualpa refused, and marched against Huascar in hostile array. Victory declared itself in favour of Atahualpa, who made a cruel use of his success. Conscious of the defect in his own title to the crown, he attempted to exterminate the royal race by putting to death all the children of the Sun, descended from Manco Capac.

When Pizarro landed in the bay of St. Matthew, this civil war raged between the brothers with the greatest fury. His alliance and assistance were sought by Atahualpa, which he readily promised, and by these means was allowed to march his troops in safety across the sandy desert between St. Michael and Motupe, where their career might easily have been stopped. As they approached Caxamalca, Atahualpa renewed his professions of friendship, and as an evidence of their sincerity sent the Spaniards presents of great value. On entering this place Pizarro took possession of a large court, on one side of which was a palace of the inca, on the other a temple of the Sun; the whole was surrounded with a strong rampart or wall of earth. He then sent messengers inviting Atahualpa to visit him in his quarters; which he readily promised. On the return of