Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/181

Rh of Blasco, the president and viceroy; and that of Lima was but of short duration. Lison having been sent prisoner to Spain, and Zepeda having set out to join the army of Gonzalo Pizarro, the above-mentioned Zarate was the only one of the judges, who remained; on which account, and the better to confirm his authority, Pizarro carried off with him the royal seal. Accordingly, when the licentiate Pedro de la Gasca was, in 1546, named president, the dispatch observed, of the royal audience which did exist in Peru.

Notwithstanding the new judges, Domingo Renteria, and Andres Zianca, did in reality embark with the president Gasca, the latter was prevented from establishing and regulating the order of the dispatch, by the necessity to which he was reduced, to follow the traces of Gonzalo, until his defeat and subsequent imprisonment, in the valley of Xaqui-raguna, four leagues from Cusco, which happened on the 9th of April 1548. As soon, however, as the rebel and his followers had received the punishment due to their crimes, the royal audience was established on a solid basis. On the 13th of March 1549, Melchor Bravo and Andres Zianca took their seats in their judicial capacity; and on the 27th of June of the same year, their example was followed by the licentiates Hernando Santillana and Maldonado. These documents are extracted from an authentic MS. in the possession of the society, but which does not throw any light on the destiny of the licentiate Renteria.

The manuscript in question, which commences by the schedule of the president Blasco Nunez Vela, after stating that a salary of five thousand ducats was annexed to his office, makes the following curious extract from the schedule itself: And