But the seeds of permanent
distrust were left in his bosom, and lay waiting for the due season to
ripen into a fruitful harvest of discord.1
Pedrarias had been originally interested in the enterprise, at least, so far
as to stipulate for a share of the gains, though he had not contributed, as
it appears, a single ducat towards the expenses. He was at length,
however, induced to relinquish all right to a share of the contingent
profits. But, in his manner of doing so, he showed a mercenary spirit,
better becoming a petty trader than a high officer of the Crown. He
stipulated that the associates should secure to him the sum of one
thousand pesos de oro in requital of his good-will, and they eagerly
closed with his proposal, rather than be encumbered with his pretensions.
For so paltry a consideration did he resign his portion of the rich spoil of
the Incas! 2 But the governor was not gifted with the eye of a prophet.
His avarice was of that short-sighted kind which defeats itself. He had
sacrificed the chivalrous Balboa just as that officer was opening to him
the conquest of Peru, and he would now have quenched the spirit of
enterprise, that was taking the same direction, in Pizarro and his
associates.
Not long after this, in the following year, he was succeeded in his
government by Don Pedro de los Rios, a cavalier of Cordova.
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