The government heard with dismay of the
troubles caused by the ordinances and the intemperate conduct of
the viceroy; and it was not long before it learned that this
functionary was deposed and driven from his capital, while the
whole country, under Gonzalo Pizarro, was arrayed in arms against
him. All classes were filled with consternation at this alarming
intelligence; and many that had before approved the ordinances
now loudly condemned the ministers, who, without considering the
inflammable temper of the people, had thus rashly fired a train
which menaced a general explosion throughout the colonies. *1 No
such rebellion, within the memory of man, had occurred in the
Spanish empire. It was compared with the famous war of the
comunidades, in the beginning of Charles the Fifth's reign. But
the Peruvian insurrection seemed the more formidable of the two.
The troubles of Castile, being under the eye of the Court, might
be the more easily managed; while it was difficult to make the
same power felt on the remote shores of the Indies. Lying along
the distant Pacific, the principle of attraction which held Peru
to the parent country was so feeble, that this colony might, at
any time, with a less impulse than that now given to it, fly from
its political orbit. It seemed as if the fairest of its jewels
was about to fall from the imperial diadem!
[Footnote 1: "Que aquello era contra una cedula que tenian del
Emperador que les daba el repartimiento de los indios de su vida,
y del hijo mayor, y no teniendo hijos a sus mugeres, con
mandarles espresamente que se casasen como lo habian ya hecho los
mas de ellos; y que tambien era contra otra cedula real que
ninguno podia ser despojado de sus indios sin ser primero oido a
justicia y condenado.
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