enable him to undertake any enterprise for recovering his authority in
Peru; yet it seemed advisable to Gonzalo and his officers to take
possession of the Tierra Firma, on purpose to occupy the only direct
passage between Spain and Peru. For this purpose, Gonzalo Pizarro
appointed Pedro Alfonzo De Hinojosa to command the fleet which Bachicao
had collected, giving him a detachment of two hundred and fifty men to
enable him to occupy the isthmus, and directed him while on his voyage
to Panama to coast along the province of Buenaventura and the mouth of
the river of San Juan.

Hinojosa set out immediately on this expedition, dispatching a single
vessel, commanded by Captain Rodrigo de Carvajal direct for Panama, with
letters from Gonzalo to some of the principal inhabitants of that city
urging them to favour his designs. In these letters, he pretended that
he was exceedingly displeased on hearing of the violence and rapacity
with which Bachicao had conducted himself towards the inhabitants of
Panama, in direct contradiction to his orders, which were to land the
Doctor Texada without doing injury to any one. He informed them that
Hinojosa was now on his way to their city, for the express purpose of
indemnifying all those who had been injured by Bachicao; and desired
them not to be under any apprehension of Hinojosa, although accompanied
by a considerable force, as it was necessary for him to be on his guard
against the viceroy and some of his officers, who were understood to be
then in the Tierra Firma levying soldiers for their master. On the
arrival of Rodrigo Carvajal at a place named Ancona about three leagues
from Panama, he learnt that two officers belonging to the viceroy, Juan
de Guzman and Juan Yllanez, were then in Panama, having been sent to
that place to procure recruits and to purchase arms, with which they
were to have gone to Popayan. They had already enrolled above an hundred
soldiers, and had procured a considerable quantity of arms, among which