VASCO NU1EZ DE

BALBOA (c. 1475-1517)  , the discoverer of the Pacific, a leading figure among the Spanish explorers and conquerors of America, was born at Jerez de los Caballeros, in Estremadura, about 1475 . Though poor, he was by birth a gentleman (hidalgo) . Little is known of his life till 1501, when he followed Rodrigo de Bastidas in his voyage of discovery to the western seas . He appears to have settled in Hispaniola, and took to cultivating land in the neighbourhood of Salvatierra, but with no great success, as his debts soon became oppressive . In 1509 the famous Ojeda (Hojeda) sailed from San Domingo with an expedition and founded the settlement of San Sebastian . He had left orders with Enciso, an adventurous lawyer of the town, to fit out two ships and convey provisions to the new settlement . Enciso set sail in 1510, and Balboa, whose debts made the town unpleasant to him, managed to accompany him by concealing himself, it is said, in a cask of " victuals for the voyage," which was conveyed from his farm to the ship . The expedition reached San Sebastian to find Ojeda gone and the settlement in ruins . While Enciso was undecided how to act, Balboa proposed that they should sail for Darien, on the Gulf of Uraba, where he had touched when with Bastidas . _ His proposal was accepted and a new town was founded, named Sta Maria de la Antigua del Darien; but quarrels soon broke out among the adventurers, and Enciso was deposed, thrown into prison and finally sent off to Spain with Balboa's ally, the alcalde Zamudio . Being thus left in authority, Balboa began to conquer the surrounding country, and by his bravery, courtesy, kindness of heart and just dealing gained the friendship of several native chiefs . On one of these excursions he heard for the first time, from the cacique Comogre, of the ocean on the other side of the mountains and of the gold of Peru .

Soon after his return to Darien he received letters from Zamudio, informing him that Enciso had complained to the

king, and had obtained a sentence condemning Balboa and summoning him to Spain . In his despair at this message Vasco Nunez resolved to attempt some great enterprise, the success of which he trusted would conciliate his sovereign . On the 1st of September 1513 he set out with one hundred and ninety Spaniards (Francisco Pizarro among them) and one thousand natives; on the 25th or 26th of September he reached the summit of the range, and sighted the Pacific . Pizarro and two others were sent on to reconnoitre; one of these scouts, Alonzo Martin, was the first European actually to embark upon the new-found ocean, in St Michael's Gulf . On the 29th of September Balboa himself arrived upon the shore, and formally took possession of the " Great South Sea " in the name of the Spanish monarch . He remained on the coast for some time, heard again of Peru, visited the Pearl Islands, and thence returned to Darien, which he entered in triumph with a great booty on the 18th of January 1514 . He at once sent messengers to Spain bearing presents, to give an account of his discoveries; and the king, Ferdinand the Catholic, partly reconciled to his daring subject, named him Adelantado of the South Sea, or admiral of the Pacific, and governor of Panama and Coyba . None the less an expedition sailed from Spain under Don Pedro Arias de Avila (generally called Pedrarias Davila) to replace Balboa in the government of the Darien colony itself . Mean-while the latter had crossed the isthmus and revisited the Pacific several (some say more than twenty) times; plans of the con-quest of Peru and of the exploration of the western ocean began to shape themselves in his mind; and with a view to these projects, materials for shipbuilding were gathered together upon the Pacific coast, and two light brigantines were built, launched and armed . With these Vasco Nunez now took possession of the Pearl Islands, and, had it not been for the weather, would have reached the coast of Peru . But his career was stopped by the jealousy of Pedrarias, who pretended that Balboa proposed to throw off his allegiance, and enticed him to Acla, near Darien, by a crafty message . As soon as he had him in his power, he threw 242 him into prison, had him tried for treason, and forced the judge to condemn him to death .

The sentence was carried into

execution on the public square of Acla in 1517 . From a reckless adventurer, Balboa had developed into an able general, an excellent colonial administrator, and a statesman of mature rsdgment and brilliant foresight . See G . F. de Oviedo, Historia general ... de las Indias (1526, ' k. xxxix. chs . 2, 3) ; D . M . T . Quintana, Vidas de Espanoles celebres; M . F. de Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viajes y Descubrimientos (1825-1837); J . Acosta, Compendio historico de la Nueva Granada (1848) ; O . Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde (1865, p . 237), and Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, pp .

442-3 &c.;

Washington Irving's Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus (1831), and Varela's notes on the same in Biblioteca del Comercio del Plata (Monte Video); Ferdinand Denis, art . " Vasco Nunez de Balboa," in Nouv . Biog . Gen .