The captain Gonzalo Pizarro travelled to Cuzco accompanied by a few
comrades who had come out of the Canela country with him, and others
who now joined him, who, by always talking of things of the past
without considering the serious trouble that must overtake them in the
future, incited him to no good purpose, but to a course which might
do much harm. This is the great sorrow I feel--that many princes and
great lords, if vain words had not been poured into their ears by the
voices of youths and flatterers, would not have involved themselves
and their neighbours in so many calamities and disasters. It has been
the same in these Indies, where the men living in them are alike
astute and malicious, as well as so much addicted to uproars that
the governors and captains who wish to live peaceably get no chance
of doing so. Some to avenge themselves on others, some to obtain
commands and dignities, some to secure favours and riches, incite the
poorer sort to live at enmity with their equals. They rise for certain
objects, and, forced by necessity, have to carry their opinions
forward, while those who thus commit them slip out of the mess when
they see a time for it. So it was with the ill-fated captain Gonzalo
Pizarro who, besides being ambitious to command, was so stirred up by
his followers that, after having served his Majesty loyally and well,
he entered upon bad and ugly courses,[149] as we are told on a stone
memorial which is set up in the city of Cuzco, forever branding him as
a traitor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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