their interest and happiness, and necessary to the preservation of their
properties, and being more exposed in time of civil war than even the
soldiers to be harassed and tormented in many ways, as the ruling party
was apt on the slightest pretexts to put them to death on purpose to
seize their effects, with which to gratify and reward the partizans of
their tyranny and injustice. These seditious discourses were so openly
indulged in, that they reached the knowledge of the lieutenants of
Gonzalo; who, each in his peculiar jurisdiction, punished the authors as
they deemed right. At Lima, to which most of these prisoners had gone,
Pedro Martin de Cecilia the provost marshal was a violent partizan of
Gonzalo, and caused several of these malecontents to be hanged. Lorenzo
de Aldana, who had been left by Gonzalo as lieutenant-governor of Lima,
was a prudent man, and conducted himself in a quite different manner,
being disinclined from acting with such violence as might occasion
displeasure to either party in the sequel; for which reason he used all
his influence to prevent putting any one to death, or from injuring any
person in any manner. Although he held his office from Gonzalo, he never
exerted himself zealously in his service, so that the partizans of that
usurper considered him as secretly gained by the other party, more
especially as he always behaved well to the known friends of the
viceroy. On this account, all these men flocked to Lima, where they
believed themselves in greater security than anywhere else. The
partizans of Gonzalo, on the other hand, made loud complaints against
the favourable behaviour of Aldana to the royalists; and in particular
one of the alcaldes of Lima, named Christopher de Burgos, spoke of it so
openly that Aldana thought it necessary to give him a public reprimand,
and even committed him to prison for some time. Several even went so far
as to communicate their suspicions of the fidelity of Aldana to Gonzalo
Pizarro by letters, and even persuaded him of the truth of their
allegations: But he refrained from manifesting his want of confidence in