BALBO'A, VASCO NUNEZ DE, a Spanish conqueror, was b. of a noble hut reduced family at Xeres-de-Caballeros in 1475. After leading rather a dissolute life in his youth, he gladly took part in the great mercantile expedition of Rodrigo de Bastidas to the new world. Ile established himself in St. Domingo, and began to cultivate the soil; but fortune proving adverse, in order to escape from his creditors, he had himself smug Bled on board a ship, and joined the expedition to Darien in 1510, commanded by Fran cisco de Enciso. It is curious to reflect that the man destined to discover the eastern shores of the largest ocean on the globe, should.have been compelled to secret himself in a cask before he could share in the new enterprise. An insurrection which took place obtained for 13. the supreme command in the new colony. Confused accounts which reached him of a great western ocean, impelled him, in 1513, to set out in quest of it. On the 25th of Sept. of this year, he obtained the first sight of the Pacific ocean from a mountaic-top in the Isthmus of Panama. his natural enthusiasm at this great
discovery was shared by all the educated men of his time, and the descriptions of it by contemporary authors may still be read with much interest. The governorship of the territories conquered by B. was obtained in 1514 I,y Pedrarias Davila, by means of his intrigues at the Spanish court. B. resigned the command into the hands of the new governor, a narrow-minded and cruel man, and, in a subordinate situation, undertook many successful expeditions; but these, and all his other merits, only served to increase the hatred of Pedrarias Davila towards him. The government of the mother-country sought in vain to mediate between them, and B. even married the daughter of Pedra rias. But on the first occasion of dispute which arose, B., having been induced by Pcdrarias to deliver himself up, was accused of a design to rebel, and in violation of all forms of justice was beheaded at Santa Maria in 1517.