If You Are Disposed To Believe All This, To
Receive Baptism, And To Obey The Emperor, As Is Done By
The greatest
portion of the Christian world, that great prince will protect and defend
you and your country in peace,
Causing justice to be administered to all.
He will likewise confirm all your rights and liberties, as he is
accustomed to do to all the kings and princes who have voluntarily
submitted to his authority. But if you refuse this and choose to run the
hazard of war, the governor will attack you with fire and sword, and is
ready at this moment to do so with arms in his hand[13]."
When Atahualpa had listened to this discourse, very imperfectly rendered
by an ignorant interpreter, he answered, "That the whole of this country
had been conquered by his father and his ancestors, who had left it in
rightful succession to his elder brother the inca Huascar. That he having
been conquered and taken prisoner, Atahualpa held himself as legitimate
sovereign, and could not conceive how St Peter could pretend to give it
away to any one, without the knowledge and consent of him to whom it
belonged. As for Jesus Christ, who he said had created heaven and earth
and man and all other things, he knew nothing of all this, believing that
the sun his father was the creator of all, whom he and his nation
venerated as a god, worshipping likewise the earth as the mother of all
things, and the _guacas_ as subordinate divinities, and that Pachacama was
the supreme ruler and creator of all things.
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