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. Conscious of the
defect in his own title to the throne, he attempted to exterminate the
royal race, by putting to death all the children of the sun descended from
Manco Capac, whom he could seize either by force or stratagem. From a
political motive, the life of the unfortunate Huascar, who had been taken
prisoner in a battle which decided the fate of the empire, was prolonged
for some time; that, by issuing orders in his name, the usurper might more
easily establish his own authority."
"When Pizarro landed in the bay of St Matthew, in 1531, this civil war
raged between the two brothers in its greatest fury; and though the two
competitors received early accounts of the arrival of the Spaniards, they
were so intent upon the operations of a war which they deemed more
interesting, that they gave no attention to the motions of an enemy too
inconsiderable in number to excite any great alarm, and to whom it would
be easy, as they imagined, to give a check when more at leisure.
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