THE
C O M P A N I O N S OF C O L U M B U S .
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were implicated in his alleged conspiracy ; among these was Her nando de Arguello, who had written the letter to Vasco Nunez, informing him of the arrest of his messenger, and advising him to put to sea, without heeding the hostility of Pedrarias.
As to
the perfidious informer Garabito, he was pardoned and set at liberty. In considering this case as far as we are enabled, from the imperfect testimony on record, we are inclined to think it one where passion and self-interest interfered with the pure adminis tration of justice.
Pedrarias had always considered Vasco Nunez
as a dangerous rival, and, though his jealousy had been for some time lulled by looking on him as an intended son-in-law, it was revived by the suggestion that he intended to evade his alliance and dispute his authority.
His exasperated feelings hurried him
too far to retreat, and, having loaded his prisoner with chains and indignities, his death became indispensable to his own secu rity. For our own part, we have little doubt that it was the fixed intention of Vasco Nunez, after he had once succeeded in the arduous undertaking of transporting his ships across the moun tains, to suffer no capricious order from Pedrarias, nor any other governor, to defeat the enterprise which he had so long meditated and for which he had so laboriously prepared.
It is probable he
may have expressed such general determination in the hearing of Garabito and of others of his companions. W e can find ample excuse for such a resolution in his consciousness of his own de serts ; his experience of past hinderances to his expedition, arising from the jealousy of others ; his feeling of some degree of autho rity, from his office of Adelantado ; and his knowledge of the favorable disposition and kind intentions of his sovereign towards
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