Nicuesa proceeded from Coiba to Uraba, the province of his ally Hojeda.  Some days later, being on board one of the large merchant vessels called by the Spaniards caravels, he ordered the other ships to follow at a distance, keeping with him two vessels with double sets of oars, of the type called brigantines.  I may here say that during the rest of my narrative it is my intention to give to these brigantines as well as to the other types of ships the names they bear in the vulgar tongue.  I do this that I may be more clearly understood, regardless of the teeth of critics who rend the works of authors.  Each day new wants arise, impossible to translate with the vocabulary left us by the venerable majesty of antiquity.

After Nicuesa’s departure Hojeda was joined by a ship from Hispaniola with a crew of sixty men commanded by Bernardino de Calavera, who had stolen it.  Neither the maritime commander, or to speak more plainly the Admiral,—­nor the authorities had consented to his departure.  The provisions brought by this ship somewhat restored the strength of the Spaniards.

The complaints of the men against Hojeda increased from day to day; for they accused him of having deceived them.  He alleged in his defence, that by virtue of the powers he held from the King he had directed the bachelor Enciso, who was chief justice and whom he had selected because of his great legal abilities, to follow him with a shipload of stores; and that he was much astonished that the latter had not long since arrived.  He spoke the truth, for at the time of his departure, Enciso had already more than half completed his preparations.  His companions, however, who considered they had been duped, did not believe in the sincerity of his affirmations about Enciso, and a number of them secretly planned to seize two brigantines belonging to Hojeda, and to return to Hispaniola.  Upon discovering this plot, Hojeda decided to anticipate their plan and, leaving Francisco Pizarro, a nobleman[6] who commanded the forts he had built, he took some of his men and went on board the ship we have mentioned.  His intention was to go to Hispaniola, not only to recover from the wound in his hip, but also to learn the causes of Enciso’s delay.  He promised his companions to return in less than fifty days.  Out of the three hundred there only remained about sixty men, for the others had either perished of hunger or had been slain by the natives.  Pizarro and his men pledged themselves to remain at their posts until his return within fifty days bringing provisions and reinforcements.  When the established time elapsed, finding themselves reduced by famine, they boarded the brigantines and abandoned Uraba.

[Note 6:  Pizarro was far from being a nobleman, his mother being a peasant woman and his father the captain Gonzalo Pizarro.]