Few of
them could have turned their backs on their native land with less cause
for regret than Pizarro.4
In what year this important change in his destiny took place we are not
informed. The first we hear of him in the New World is at the island of
Hispaniola, in 1510, where he took part in the expedition to Uraba in
Terra Firma, under Alonzo de Ojeda, a cavalier whose character and
achievements find no parallel but in the pages of Cervantes. Hernando
Cortes, whose mother was a Pizarro, and related, it is said, to the father
of Francis, was then in St. Domingo, and prepared to accompany
Ojeda's expedition, but was prevented by a temporary lameness. Had he
gone, the fall of the Aztec empire might have been postponed for some
time longer, and the sceptre of Montezuma have descended in peace to
his posterity. Pizarro shared in the disastrous fortunes of Ojeda's colony,
and, by his discretion, obtained so far the confidence of his commander,
as to be left in charge of the settlement, when the latter returned for
supplies to the islands. The lieutenant continued at his perilous post for
nearly two months, waiting deliberately until death should have thinned
off the colony sufficiently to allow the miserable remnant to be
embarked in the single small vessel that remained to it.
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