Majesty's Governor in those parts, and they made me a drawing on cloth of the whole of it by which I calculated that I could go over the greater part of it, especially as far as the place they indicated to me as the abode of those Spaniards. Thus informed about the road I was to take for carrying out my plans, and converting the natives to the knowledge of our Holy Catholic Faith, and bringing them to Your Majesty's service (certain as I was that on such a long journey I would have to cross many provinces and encounter people of divers races), being also curious to know whether the Spaniards they described were those whom I had sent under the Captains Cristobal de Olid, Pedro de Alvarado, or Francisco de las Casas, I esteemed it advantageous to Your Majesty's service to go thither myself; inasmuch as my journey being through regions and provinces heretofore unexplored, I would have ample occasion for serving Your Majesty, and pacifying the said countries, as afterwards happened. Conceiving to myself the result my expedition would produce, and setting aside the fatigues and expenses it entailed, of which some of my people did not fail to remind me, I determined to follow the route already decided upon before leaving this city.
Before I reached the said town of Espiritu Santo, I had received letters from this city at two or three places on the road, from my lieutenants, and other persons; and Your Majesty's officials who were with me likewise received similar ones. These informed us that the Treasurer and Accounting Master had quarrelled, and
carrying twelve hundred soldiers, besides fifteen hundred gentlemen, or persons of some quality. Balboa, without a murmur, surrendered to the new Governor his authority at Santa Maria Antigua, as the town on Darien was called, and shortly afterward married his daughter; but, in spite of this, Pedrarius trumped up a charge of disloyalty and plotting a rebellion against Balboa, who, to the sorrow and amazement of the protesting colonists was executed. The Bishop of Burgos protected Pedrarius from the punishment his conduct merited.
