Читать книгу The War of Quito - Pedro de Cieza de León - Страница 15

Table of Contents

Of the great disturbances in the city of Arequipa when tidings came respecting the new laws, and how Francisco de Carbajal departed from Lima.

When Alonso Palomino and Antonio de Ribera came to the city of Cuzco with the news of the ordinances, the Governor Vaca de Castro sent one Tomas Vasquez, with all the haste he could make to the city of Arequipa with a letter. It desired the citizens not to be disturbed, and to make no trouble whatever when they should hear the news about the Viceroy and the ordinances because, when his Majesty was informed that it would not be for the good of his service if they were enforced, he would very shortly amend them. It ended by telling them to send representatives to Lima to state their grievance. Tomas Vasquez set out from Cuzco and arrived at the end of seven days, finding the principal citizens in the church. After they had read the letter Vasquez showed them a copy of the ordinances. When their provisions were understood there was a great disturbance, and the bells were rung as if it were a signal for war. A citizen of Arequipa named Miguel Cornejo took the ordinances in his hand, went up into the pulpit where the preachers deliver their sermons, and when all the people had assembled at the sound of the bell, he began to read the new laws before them all. When he came to the place where the King ordered that, when the Encomenderos died, all their grants were to revert to the crown, there arose great shouts of dissent, all declaring that they would die rather than allow it to be enforced, and they said the same with regard to all the other laws. Among those who were there the tumult was as great as it had been at Lima, the people going about sullenly, and discussing it one with another, saying that they were all disinherited and ruined after having, with so much labour and fatigue, discovered the province, and that they were ill paid for it. The Captain Alonso de Caceres procured that the tumult should cease, as such words could do them no good. So leaving this we come to the arrival of Carbajal.

Francisco de Carbajal wished to return to Spain knowing, from his experience in war, that there must be disturbances in all the provinces on the arrival of the Viceroy. He tried hard to induce the municipality of Lima to let him go, but he could not attain his desire, because the authorities did not wish any ship to leave the port until the Viceroy should come. Seeing that there was little chance of attaining his end, he determined to go to the city of Arequipa, believing that he might find a ship in the port of Quilca, on board of which he might take a passage. He therefore departed from Lima in haste, with all the money he possessed, divining the great calamity that was threatening the country. For it pleased God that Carbajal should not leave the country but that he should be the scourge for the punishment of many, as he was, for so many perished by his order that it causes grief to think of it.