CHAPTER XXXVI

_How the Judges arrived at Lima and established the Court of Justice._

We stated further back that, from the city of Panama the Viceroy Blasco Nuñez Vela went on, and the Judges remained behind, to come later. After some days the Judges, with their wives, embarked in ships, landed at Payta, and began the journey to Lima by land. The complaints they received about the Viceroy were loud. They were assured that more than forty Spaniards had died of hunger on the roads, because the Indians would supply them with nothing. They replied that the Viceroy was a rash man, but that when they came to Lima they would establish the court of justice, that he might not indulge in such follies as he had done since he entered the kingdom. Talking in this way they arrived at Lima, where they found the place armed for defence, as the Viceroy had begun to declare war against Gonzalo Pizarro. When they arrived they were well received, lodged in houses of citizens, were well attended, and received many visitors.

They went to see the Viceroy who told them that the whole province was in a disturbed state, that Gaspar Rodriguez de Camporedondo and Bachicao with others had fled from Lima, and excited the people of Cuzco where, without the fear of God or the King, they had nominated Gonzalo Pizarro as Procurator, and that he had seized the artillery which was at Guamanga, that, with it and the troops he had collected, he might march to Lima against them. The Judges were surprised to hear this news. The royal seal was brought under a canopy, the wands being carried by magistrates. The court of justice was then founded, and notices were sent to all parts. The Viceroy wrote an account of what was happening in Peru to the royal majesty of our Lord the King, from the time he landed, and how there was opposition to the ordinances which he had ordered to be promulgated. He wrote the same information to the members of the King’s very high Council.