At this period, the Captain Saavedra, who was lieutenant-governor of Guanuco for Gonzalo, received letters from Aldana urging him to quit the insurgent party and to declare for his majesty.  He accordingly determined to do so; and under pretence of obeying the orders he had received from Gonzalo of joining his army at Lima, along with Hernando Alonzo, he assembled all the soldiers he could procure in that province, with whose assistance he fortified the city of Guanuco, and informed them of his resolution to exert his best endeavours in the service of the king.  All his soldiers agreed to follow his example, except three or four who fled and informed Gonzalo of the defection of their governor.  Saavedra retired immediately to Caxamarca, with forty horsemen, where he joined Diego de Mora and those who had withdrawn along with him from Truxillo, where both declared themselves for the royalist party.  On learning the defection of Saavedra and the principal inhabitants of Guanuco, Gonzalo sent an officer to that place at the head of thirty soldiers; with orders to pillage and destroy the city:  But the Indians of the neighbourhood, having armed themselves and taken possession of the place by the orders of their masters, made so resolute a defence that the insurgent detachment was beaten off, and constrained to return to Lima, being unable to procure any other plunder except some mares cattle and other animals belonging to the settlers.

On the arrival of Antonio de Robles at Cuzco, whom Gonzalo had sent to take the command in that city and province, Alfonso de Hinojosa, who had hitherto been lieutenant-governor there, resigned the command of the city and troops, but as was believed with much dissatisfaction.  De Robles immediately collected as much money as he could procure, and enlisted all the soldiers that were to be found in that neighbourhood, with whom he marched to Xaquixaguana, about four leagues from Cuzco.  At that place he learned that Diego Centeno; who had concealed himself for more than a year in a cave among the mountains, had recently left his concealment, on learning the arrival of the president, and had collected several of his former partisans, who had hidden themselves from the fury of Gonzalo in various parts of the woods and mountains.  By this time Centeno had collected about forty men, mostly on foot, though some of them still had the horses with which they had made their escape.  Although these men were neither so well armed or equipped as they could have wished, Centeno resolved to make an attempt upon Cuzco, shewing as much confidence as if he had been at the head of five hundred well armed troops.  His principal followers were Luis de Ribera, Alfonso Perez de Esquival, Diego Alvarez, Francisco Negral, Pedro Ortiz de Zarate, and Friar Dominic Ruiz, commonly called Father Viscayno.  With this small band of followers, Centeno drew nigh to Cuzco, being doubtless invited to that step by some of the principal inhabitants, for the purpose of freeing them from