The Monarch Himself Appeared With Ensigns Of Royalty Reserved For Him Alone; And Received From His Subjects Marks Of Obsequious Homage And Respect, Which Approached Almost To Adoration.

But among the Peruvians, this unbounded power of their monarchs seems to have been uniformly accompanied with attention to the good of their subjects.

It was not the rage of conquests, if we may believe the accounts of their countrymen, that prompted the Incas to extend their dominion, but the desire of diffusing the blessings of civilization, and the knowledge of the arts which they possessed, among the barbarous people whom they reduced. During a succession of twelve monarchs, it is said that not one deviated from this beneficent character."

"When the Spaniards first visited the coast of Peru in 1526, Huana Capac, the twelfth monarch from the founder of the state, was seated on the throne. He is represented as a prince distinguished not only for the pacific virtues peculiar to the race, but eminent for his martial talents. By his victorious arms the kingdom of Quito was subjected, a conquest of such extent and importance as almost doubled the power of the Peruvian empire. He was fond of residing in the capital of that valuable province which he had added to his dominions; and notwithstanding the ancient and fundamental law of the monarchy against polluting the royal blood by any foreign alliance, he married the daughter of the vanquished monarch of Quito. She bore him a son named Atahualpa, whom, on his death at Quito, which seems to have happened about the year 1529, he appointed his successor in that kingdom, leaving the rest of his dominions to Huascar, his eldest son, by a mother of the royal race. Greatly as the Peruvians revered the memory of a monarch who had reigned with greater reputation and splendour than any of his predecessors, the destination of Huana Capac concerning the succession appeared so repugnant to a maxim coeval with the empire, and founded on authority deemed sacred, that it was no sooner known at Cuzco than it excited general disgust. Encouraged by those sentiments of his subjects, Huascar required his brother to renounce the government of Quito, and to acknowledge him as his lawful superior. But it had been the first care of Atahualpa to gain a large body of troops which had accompanied his father to Quito. These were the flower of the Peruvian warriors, to whose valour Huana Capac had been indebted for all his victories. Atahuaipa first eluded the demand of his brother, and then marched against him in hostile array."

"Thus the ambition of two young princes, the title of the one founded on ancient usage, and of the other asserted by the veteran troops, involved Peru in civil war, a calamity to which it had been hitherto a stranger, under a succession of virtuous monarchs. In such a contest the issue was obvious. The force of arms triumphed over the authority of laws. Atahualpa remained victorious, and made a cruel use of his victory.

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