When these orders were prepared, the judges were desirous of sending some of the inhabitants of Lima to carry them to Gonzalo Pizarro; but no one would undertake the commission, which they considered as extremely hazardous. They represented to the judges, that Gonzalo and his officers would reproach them for opposing the just measures in which they were engaged; as they had associated for the general interest of the colony. On this refusal of the inhabitants, the judges gave orders to Augustino, the royal treasurer of Peru[7], and Don Antonio de Ribeta, one of the citizens of Lima, to carry this order to Gonzalo. To these messengers they gave formal letters of credence, with which they set out upon their journey for the valley of Jauja, in which Gonzalo Pizarro was then encamped with his army. Gonzalo had already received notice of this intended embassy; and was afraid, if the envoys should give a public notification of the message with which they were entrusted, that his troops might mutiny; as he knew they were exceedingly desirous of marching to Lima in full force, that they might be in condition to pillage that city on the first pretext that offered. To prevent this, he sent Jerom de Villegas with thirty mounted musqueteers to intercept the two messengers now on their way to the army. According to his instructions, Villegas allowed Ribera to continue his journey to the camp; but made Augustino de Zarate a prisoner, and deprived him of his dispatches. Zarate was carried back by Villegas to the province of Pariacaca[8], where he was detained a prisoner for ten days, and every means were employed to intimidate him that he might not execute the commission with which he was entrusted.
[Footnote 7: The author of the History of the Discovery and Conquest of Peru, which forms the subject of the present article; who accordingly, might justly say of these events, _quorum pars magna fui_. His associate on this occasion was the person who had charge of the family of the late marquis Don Francisco Pizarro, and had married the widow of Francisco Martin de Alcantara, as we learn from Garcilasso.--E.]
[Footnote 8: No such province is now to be found in the best maps of Peru; but seventy or eighty miles to the north of Jauja, there is a district called the valley of Pari, with a town of the same name on the _Chinchay Cocha_, or lake of Chinchay, which may then have been called Pari-cocha, or Pari on the lake. From this circumstance, it appears the messengers had been obliged to make a great circuit towards the north, on purpose to get a passage across the main western ridge of the Andes.--E.]