labours. Both the letter and the presents were intrusted to a man named Arbolanche, who departed from Darien about the beginning of March, 1514. ... Vasco Nuñez's messenger, Arbolanche, reached the court of Spain too late for his master's interests." The latter had already been superseded in the Governorship, and his successor was on the way to take his authority from him. The new governor was one Pedrarias De Avila, or Davila, as the name is sometimes written;--an envious and malignant old man, under whose rule on the isthmus the destructive energy of Spanish conquest rose to its meanest and most heartless and brainless development. Conspicuously exposed as he was to the jealousy and hatred of Pedrarias, Vasco Nuñez was probably doomed to ruin, in some form, from the first. At one time, in 1516, there seemed to be a promise for him of alliance with his all-powerful enemy, by a marriage with one of the governor's daughters, and he received the command of an expedition which again crossed the isthmus, carrying ships, and began the exploration of the Pacific. But circumstances soon arose which gave Pedrarias all opportunity to accuse the explorer of treasonable designs and to accomplish his arrest--Francisco Pizarro being the officer fitly charged with the execution of the governor's warrant. Brought in chains to Acla, Vasco Nuñez was summarily tried, found guilty and led forth to swift death, laying his head upon the block (A. D. 1517). "Thus perished Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, in the forty-second year of his age, the man who, since the time of Columbus, had shown the most statesmanlike and warriorlike powers in that part of the world, but whose career only too much resembles that of Ojeda, Nicuesa, and the other unfortunate commanders who devastated those beautiful regions of the earth." _Sir A. Helps, Spanish Conquest in America, book 6 (volume 1)_. "If I have applied strong terms of denunciation to Pedrarias Dávila, it is because he unquestionably deserves it. He is by far the worst man who came officially to the New World during its early government. In this all authorities agree. And all agree that Vasco Nuñez was not deserving of death." _H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, chapter 8-12 (foot-note, page 458)._ ALSO IN W. Irving, _Life and Voyages of Columbus and His Companions, volume 3._ AMERICA: A. D. 1515. Discovery of La Plata by Juan de Solis. See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1515-1557. AMERICA: A. D. 1517-1518. The Spaniards find Mexico.