168 



FERNANDO, SON OF THE INCA. 



Chap. X. 



happy survivors were shipped off at Callao, in two ships, the 

 ' Peruana ' and the ' San Pedro,' and thrown into cells in 

 Cadiz for three years, when Charles III. caused them to be 

 distributed, apart from each other, in prisons in the interior of 

 Spain, until then- sufferings were relieved by death. Once 

 during the voyage they were allowed by the brutal captain 

 of the transport ' Peruana,' named Jose Cordova, to wash their 

 tattered clothes at Rio ; but their fetters were never removed, 

 and, though the captain gave his word of honour to a French- 

 man who mended his damaged rudder, that he would take 

 them off, he unblushingly perjured himself; and the horrors 

 which were suffered by these innocent persons, many of them 

 aged women and young cliildren, were never relaxed until 

 they arrived at Cadiz.* 



Fernando, the youngest child of the Inca, " whose shrill 

 cry smote every heart with electric sympathy " ^ when he 

 beheld the cruel tortm-es of his parents, was taken to Spain 

 by the visitador Areche in 1781. He was then only ten 

 years of age. In 1783 one Don Luis Ocampo, a citizen of 

 Cuzco, went to Spain, and heard that young Fernando was 

 a close prisoner in the castle of San Sebastian at Cadiz. 

 Through the aid of an Irish gentleman, who was intimately 

 acquainted with the town major, Ocampo applied for a pass 

 to visit him, but was refused. He, nevertheless, made his 

 way into the fort, and, looking round at the hon gratiugs 



■* A person calling himself Juan 

 Bautista Tupac Amaru, and professing 

 to have been one of the sufferers, 

 printed a pamphlet, which was depo- 

 sited in the archives of Buenos Ayres. 

 In it he relates the tale of liis miseries 

 in uncouth Spanish. He says that he 

 beheld his fettered mother perish of 

 thirst on the road to Lima, in presence 

 of guards who tiu'ned a deaf ear to 

 her cries for water. He saw his faith- 

 ful wife die ou board tlie sliip, without 

 being allowed length of cliain enough 

 to approach her. During an imprison- 



ment of forty years at Ceuta the sen- 

 tries never relaxed their cruelties until 

 the ministry which came into jjower 

 in Spain, after the military movement 

 of 1820, set the few survivors at liberty. 



It IS now confidently asserted that 

 the author of this pamphlet was an 

 impostor. He came to Buenos Ayres 

 in 1822, and the reijublicau govern- 

 ment granted him a house, and a pen- 

 sion for life of 30 dollars a month. 



^ The words of the Cura of Belem, 

 who heai-d it. 



