while landing, and some Indians who were employed as labourers
on this occasion, imagined that the contents of the jar were the
purulent matter of the small-pox, imported by the governor for the
purpose of being disseminated among the Araucanian provinces, to
exterminate their inhabitants. They immediately gave notice to their
countrymen, who stopped all intercourse with the Spanish provinces and
flew to arms, killing above forty Spaniards who were then among them in
the full security of peace. To revenge this outrage, the governor
marched with an army into the Araucanian territory, and a new war was
excited which continued for some time to the great injury of both
nations."

[Footnote 71: The passage within commas is a note in the original
English publication of Molina; and from subsequent parts of the history,
the event here related appears to have occurred about the commencement
of the seventeenth century, or more than two hundred years ago.--E.]

While Villagran was using every possible exertion to maintain the
Spanish power in the south of Chili, by combating the brave and
victorious Araucanians, he found himself on the point of being compelled
to turn his arms against his own countrymen. It has been already
mentioned that Valdivia, in the instructions he left with the
magistrates of Conception before his fatal expedition into Araucania,
had nominated Francisco Aguirre in the second place as his own successor
in the government, and that Villagran, only third in nomination, had
succeeded to the command in consequence of the absence of the other two
who were prior to himself. When Aguirre, who was then in Cujo, where he
does not appear to have effected any thing of importance, was informed
of the death of Valdivia, and his own destination to the government of
Chili, he considered the assumption of the vacant command by Villagran
as prejudicial to his own just rights, and immediately returned into
Chili with sixty men who remained of his detachment, determined to
acquire possession of the government by force or favour. His pretensions
and those of Villagran must infallibly have kindled a civil war among
the Spaniards in Chili, to the ruin or vast detriment of the Spanish
interest, had not the competitors agreed to submit the decision of their
respective claims to the royal audience at Lima, which at that time,
1555, held the supreme legal jurisdiction over all the Spanish dominions
in South America. On this appeal,