beat up for volunteers in Cuzco. Being a man
of popular manners and much beloved among the soldiers,
he soon drew together above two hundred men.
So great a number of the most loose and dissolute inhabitants
being collected together at Cuzco and in arms, they
took extreme liberty in canvassing the late events,
and to speak with much licentiousness respecting the
president and the officers he had left in the government
of the kingdom. Their discourse was so open and
scandalous, that the magistrates of the city deemed
it necessary to interpose; and Juan de Saavedra, who
was then mayor or regidor of Cuzco, requested Giron
to depart upon his intended expedition without delay,
that the peaceable inhabitants might no longer be
scandalized by the seditious discourses of his soldiers,
as most of them were quartered upon the citizens to
whom they behaved with much insolence.
I was then in Cuzco, though a boy, when Giron and
his soldiers made their first disturbance; and I was
present also about three years afterwards at their
second mutiny; and, though I had not even then attained
the age of a young man, I was sufficiently able to
notice and understand the observations and discourses
of my father on the various events which occurred;
and I can testify that the soldiers behaved in so
proud and insolent a manner that the magistrates were
forced to take notice of their conduct. The soldiers
thought proper to be much offended on this occasion,
pretending that no one ought to have any authority
over them except Giron under whose command they had
inlisted; and they carried their mutinous insolence
to such a height as to assemble in arms at the house
of their commander to protect themselves against the
magistrates. When this mutiny was known in the
city, the magistrates and citizens found themselves
obliged to arm, and being joined by many soldiers
who were not of the faction, they took post in the
market-place. The mutineers drew up likewise in
the street where Giron’s house stood, at no
great distance from the market-place; and in this
manner both parties remained under arms for two days
and nights, always on the point of coming to action;
which had certainly been the case if some prudent
persons had not interposed between them, and prevailed
on the magistrates to enter into a treaty for compromising
their differences. The most active persons on
this occasion were Diego de Silva, Diego Maldonado
the rich, Garcilasso de la Vega my father, Vasco de
Guevara, Antonio Quinnones, Juan de Berrio, Jeronimo
de Loyasa, Martin de Meneses, and Francisco Rodriguez.
By their persuasions the regidor Juan de Saavedra
and Captain Francisco Hernandez Giron were induced
to meet in the great church, on which occasion the
soldiers demanded four hostages for the security of
their commander. In this conference Giron behaved
with so much insolence and audacity, that Saavedra
had assuredly arrested him if he had not been restrained
from respect for the hostages, of whom my father was
one. In a second conference in the evening, under
the same precautions, Giron agreed to remove his soldiers
from the city, to give up eight of the most mutinous
of his soldiers to the magistrates, and even to make
compearance in person before the court to answer for
his conduct during the mutiny.
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