Interest and duty, fortunately, now lay on the same
side; and the ancient sentiment of loyalty, smothered for a time,
but not extinguished, revived in the breasts of the people.
Still this was not manifested, at once, by any overt act; for,
under a strong military rule, men dared hardly think for
themselves, much less communicate their thoughts to one another.
But changes of public opinion, like changes in the atmosphere
that come on slowly and imperceptibly, make themselves more and
more widely felt, till, by a sort of silent sympathy, they spread
to the remotest corners of the land. Some intimations of such a
change of sentiment at length found their way to Lima, although
all accounts of the president's mission had been jealously
excluded from that capital. Gonzalo Pizarro himself became
sensible of these symptoms of disaffection, though almost too
faint and feeble, as yet, for the most experienced eye to descry
in them the coming tempest.
Several of the president's proclamations had been forwarded to
Gonzalo by his faithful partisans; and Carbajal, who had been
summoned from Potosi, declared they were "more to be dreaded than
the lances of Castile." *3 Yet Pizarro did not, for a moment,
lose his confidence in his own strength; and with a navy like
that now in Panama at his command, he felt he might bid defiance
to any enemy on his coasts. He had implicit confidence in the
fidelity of Hinojosa.
[Footnote 3: "Que eran mas de temer aquellas cartas que a las
lacas del Rey de Castilla.
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