This Resolution Was Principally Forwarded By Balboa, Who Secretly
Advised All The Principal People To Exclude Him, Yet Declared In Public
That He Was For Receiving Nicuessa, And Even Got The Public Notary To Give
Him A Certificate To That Effect[1].
After spending eight days among these islands, where he took a few Indians
for slaves, Nicuessa made sail for Darien.
On coming to the landing-place,
he found many of the Spaniards on the shore waiting his arrival; when, to
his great surprise, one of them required him in the name of all the rest,
to return to his own government of Nombre de Dios. Nicuessa landed next
day, when the people of Darien endeavoured to seize him, but he was
extraordinarily swift of foot, and none of them could overtake him. Balboa
prevented the colonists from proceeding to any farther extremities,
fearing they might have put Nicuessa to death, and even persuaded them to
listen to Nicuessa, who entreated them, since they would not receive him
as their governor, that they would admit him among them as a companion;
which they peremptorily refusing, he even requested them to keep him as a
prisoner, for he would rather die than go back to starve at Nombre de Dios.
In spite of every thing he could urge, they forced him to embark in an old
rotten bark, with about seventeen of his men, ordering them to return to
Nombre de Dios, on pain of being sunk if they remained at Darien.
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