How Don Diego de Almagro wrote to Captain Alonso de Alvarado, without knowing that he had raised the banner, and how he sent him an appointment as Lieutenant¹; and of the death of Orihuela.

WE have already related that Don Diego, by the advice of Juan de Herrada and Cristóbal de Sotelo, determined² to write to the captain Alonso de Alvarado at the city of La Frontera,[78] where he was lieutenant for the Marquis. He wrote a very polite letter, apprising³ him of the death of the Marquis and of how the municipality of the city of Lima had acknowledged him, Don Diego, as Governor, and that all the other cities and towns in the Realm had done the same. He appealed to Don Alonso, as a knight⁴ who would understand the motive⁵ for avenging⁶ the death of his father, not to side against him. He asked him to show friendship and to retain from him the[124] appointment he had held from the Marquis, which he now sent, desiring to increase his honour and estate. With this letter he sent him a commission as captain and Governor's lieutenant in that city. And to make sure that Don Alonso should accept the commission without wavering they compelled the secretary Antonio Picado, who was their prisoner, and whom they knew to be a fast friend of Alvarado's, to write him a letter in his own style explaining that Don Diego had acquiesced⁷ in the murder of the Marquis because of the ingratitude⁸ he had shown towards Almagro his father, and the cruelty with which he had treated his partisans⁹; adding that, since all the lieutenants¹⁰ and captains of the Marquis had obeyed and complied with the demands of Don Diego, Alvarado should do the same. By refusing he would be doing great disservice to God and to his

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