As The Spaniards In Cuzco Were
Aware That The Insurrection Was General Over All Peru, They Hardly Doubted
But The
Governor and all their other countrymen were cut off, so that they
defended themselves as men who had no earthly
Hope of succour, depending
only on the mercy of God and their own courage. Their small number was
daily diminished, as hardly a day passed in which the Indians did not kill
or wound some of their people. One time during the siege, Gonzalo Pizarro
made a sally with twenty horsemen, and proceeded to the lake or marsh of
Chinchero which is five leagues from Cuzco, where he was surrounded by so
vast a force of Indians that he must inevitably have been made prisoner,
had not Ferdinand Pizarro and Alfonso de Toro come up to his rescue with a
body of horse. Gonzalo was much blamed on this occasion for having
advanced so far among the enemy with so few men.
We have already mentioned that Almagro had resolved to return into Peru
and to make himself master of Cuzco, from the time that Juan de Herrada
had brought him the commission by which he was appointed to a government
beyond that assigned to Don Francisco Pizarro. The principal officers who
were along with him, strongly urged him to this measure, particularly
Gomez Alvarado and Diego Alvarado, brother and uncle of Don Pedro Alvarado
the governor of Guatimala, and Rodrigo Orgognez; some of whom were eager
to procure settlements in Peru, and others were desirous of gaining
establishments in Chili.
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