4l8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I02 



in with five of his companions and friends in his cruel and treacherous 

 deeds, all of them Basques ; he told them that now that the captains 

 and several others whom he had ordered murdered, were dead, 

 including Father Alonso de Henao, the priest who was chaplain of 

 the expedition and to whom they made confession, they should do 

 away with Don Hernando de Guzman, and so they did, these sacri- 

 legious rebels. And having murdered all these persons, he went and 

 retired to the brigantines with his confederates, now over 80 harque- 

 bussiers, and immediately had a proclamation published in which he 

 ordered everybody to come and embark ; he who would not, could stay. 

 And he assembled all the camp and made them a speech, saying that 

 if they had killed Don Hernando de Guzman and the others, it was 

 because they had intended to murder him and his friends and start 

 a rebellion with the fleet ; that Don Hernando was young and with 

 too little experience for an enterprise of such calibre and importance, 

 and as for another of his disposition, Don Sebastian, he saw that 

 he was lost ; and he meant never to see himself again in such a critical 

 position as that in which he had just seen himself. So he went on 

 board, and when they were all on the brigantines, he started navigating 

 his route downstream ; he appointed new Captains, Ensigns, Militia 

 Captain, and Sergeant Major. He followed his course 12 days 

 without landing day or night, although passing in sight of numerous 

 settlements ; but then we came on a large settlement, where it was 

 necessary to land to get food and some refreshment which we needed ; 

 and there this cruel rebel again started murdering, kilHng all the 

 captains he had appointed, and the Sergeant Major, stating that they 

 were organizing and carrying out a plot against him ; and he mur- 

 dered also a Knight of the Order of St. John, by name Don Juan 

 de Guevara, a native of Murcia, and three other soldiers ; it would 

 have been better if they had killed him, as many wanted to do but 

 did not dare accomplish ; for God so allowed it, in order that he might 

 be the executioner of them all. 



Chapter XIV 



Continuing the Previous Narration, with Other Cruel Deeds of 

 the Rebel. 



1211. We left this settlement where he had perpetrated all these 

 murders and sailed for 10 days more without the tyrant allowing us 

 to land ; and at the end of the 10 days we came on the first Carib 

 settlements, where the Indians killed two soldiers, because the plant 

 with which they anointed their arrows was such deadly poison that 



