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 shewing it to everybody that came in, saw with surprise that every man knew in a moment the meaning of it. When Pizarro, however, came, he could not read it, and blushed and shewed confusion. Atahualpa saw, with a surprise and contempt which he could not conceal, that Pizarro was more ignorant than his own soldiers; and the base tyrant, stung to the quick with the affront which he might suppose designed, resolved to rid himself of the Inca without delay. For this purpose, he resorted to the mockery of a trial; appointed himself, and his companion in arms, Almagro, the very man who had demanded his death, judges, and employed as interpreter, an Indian named Philippillo, who was notoriously desirous of the Inca's death, that he might obtain one of his wives. This precious tribunal charged the unfortunate Inca with being illegitimate; with having dethroned and put to death his brother; with being an idolater—the faith of the country; with having a number of concubines—the custom of the country too; with having embezzled the royal treasures, which he had done to satisfy these guests, and for which he ought now to have been free, had these wretches had but the slightest principle of right left in them. On these and similar charges they condemned him to be burnt alive! and sent him instantly to execution, only commuting his sentence into strangling instead of burning, on his agreeing, in his terror and astonishment, to acknowledge the Christian faith! What an idea he must have had of the Christian faith!

The whole career of Pizarro and his comrades, and especially this last unparalleled action, exhibit them as such thoroughly desperado characters—so har-