The
historian executed the mission, for which he seems to have had
little relish, and which certainly was not without danger. From
this period, we rarely hear of him in the troubled scenes that
ensued. He probably took no further part in affairs than was
absolutely forced on him by circumstances; but the unfavorable
bearing of his remarks on Gonzalo Pizarro intimates, that,
however he may have been discontented with the conduct of the
viceroy, he did not countenance, for a moment, the criminal
ambition of his rival. The times were certainly unpropitious to
the execution of the financial reforms for which Zarate had come
to Peru. But he showed so much real devotion to the interests of
the Crown, that the emperor, on his return, signified his
satisfaction by making him Superintendent of the Finances in
Flanders.
Soon after his arrival in Peru, he seems to have conceived the
idea of making his countrymen at home acquainted with the
stirring events passing in the colony, which, moreover, afforded
some striking passages for the study of the historian. Although
he collected notes and diaries, as he tells us, for this purpose,
he did not dare to avail himself of them till his return to
Castile. "For to have begun the history in Peru," he says,
"would have alone been enough to put my life in jeopardy; since a
certain commander, named Francisco de Carbajal, threatened to
take vengeance on any one who should be so rash as to attempt the
relation of his exploits, - far less deserving, as they were, to
be placed on record, than to be consigned to eternal oblivion.
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