In the mean time, Nicuessa, who also suffered great misfortunes, had endeavoured to establish a colony at Nombre de Dios; a deputation was sent to him here, to request him to come and assume the government of Santa Maria; he accordingly departed, but on his arrival, found that great dissensions had arisen amongst the colonists, who, instead of appointing him to the government, put him into a rotten vessel, and sent him to sea, where it is conjectured, that himself and his crew perished. The province of Tierra Firme, including both the grants of Nicuessa, and Ojeda, was given by a subsequent charter, in the year 1514, to Pedro Arias de Avila, under whose government Vasco Nunez de Balboa was beheaded on account of a revolt. It was this man who, in 1513 on the 25th of September, first descried the Pacific Ocean, from the mountains of Terra Firma, and embarking on its waters in a canoe, explored part of its shores, on his return making known to the Spanish nation, the existence of another sea beyond the Atlantic. The first discoveries of Ojeda in New Granada took place in 1502; in 1503, Roderigo Bastidas of Seville visited the coast from Santa Marta to the river of Darien. Thus in these years, the whole shore from the Gulf of Venezuela to Cape Honduras, had been explored by different navigators and adventurers. In 1504, Bastidas resumed his discoveries, and proceeded to the gulf of Darien to procure gold and slaves; he here found grains of gold in the sands, which was the first time the metal had been sent in that state to Spain. In 1515, the western coast of Panama, Veragua, and Darien, was explored under the orders of Avila, as far north as Cape Blanco; and the town of Panama was founded; from this city issued the conquerors of Peru, Francisco Pizarro, and Diego Almagro, of whom we shall have occasion to speak at length in the description of that country; they are mentioned at present, because the discovery, the conquest, and the colonization of most of the internal provinces of New Granada was achieved under their orders, by Sebastian de Benalcazar, one of the officers of the army who accompanied Pizarro and Almagro in their expedition. In 1536, Benalcazar attacked the southern provinces from Quito, whilst Gonzalo Ximenes de Quesada, who had been sent by Lugo, the admiral of the Canaries, over-run the northern districts from Santa Marta; they met with considerable opposition from the natives, but finally succeeded in reducing the country, and the whole was formed into a kingdom, and governed by a captain-general, in the year 1547; to check whose power, the royal audience was established, of which he was made president. In the year 1718, a viceroy was appointed; this office was suppressed in 1724, and again finally established in 1740.