imited power to use the public treasure, and to borrow
money for the service of the war in case the exchequer should fail to
supply sufficient for the purpose. Alvarado accordingly appointed such
officers as he thought proper to serve under him, and gave orders to
raise men, and to provide arms and ammunition for the war.

Besides the army which they authorized Alvarado to raise and command in
Las Charcas, the judges thought it necessary to raise another army at
Lima, of which Santillan, one of themselves and the archbishop of Lima
were appointed conjunct generals. Orders were likewise transmitted to
all the cities, commanding all loyal subjects to take up arms in the
service of his majesty, and a general pardon was proclaimed to all who
had been engaged in the late rebellions, under Gonzalo Pizarro, Don
Sebastian de Castilla, and others, provided they joined the royal army
within a certain given time. They likewise suspended the execution of
the decrees for freeing the Indians from personal services, during two
years, and repealed several other regulations which had given great and
general offence to the soldiers and inhabitants, and had been the cause
of all the commotions and rebellions which distracted the kingdom for so
long a time.

While these measures were carrying on against him, Hernandez, Giron was
not negligent of his own concerns. He sent off officers with detachments
of troops to Arequipa and Guamanga, to induce the inhabitants of these
cities to join him, and requiring them by solemn acts of their cabildos
to confirm and acknowledge him in the offices he had usurped. He caused
the cabildo of Cuzco to write letters to the other cities of Peru to
concur in his elevation and to give assistance in the cause, and wrote
many letters himself to various individuals in Las Charcas and other
places, soliciting them to join him. Having collected an army of above
four hundred men, besides the detachments sent to Guamanga and Arequipa,
he resolved to march for Lima, to give battle to the army of the judges,
as he called it, pretending that his own was the royal army, and that he
acted in the service of his majesty. At the first he was undetermined,
whether it might not be better to march previously against Alvarado,
whose party he considered to be the weakest, owing to the great and
cruel severity which that officer had exerted against the adherents of
the late rebellions: And many judicious persons are of opinion tha