should all have been united as one man." [28]

In vain Coronal endeavored by fair reasoning and earnest entreaty to win
this perverse and turbulent man from his career. Roldan answered with
hardihood and defiance, professing to oppose only the tyranny and misrule
of the Adelantado, but to be ready to submit to the admiral on his
arrival. He, and several of his principal confederates, wrote letters to
the same effect to their friends in San Domingo, urging them to plead
their cause with the admiral when he should arrive, and to assure him of
their disposition to acknowledge his authority.

When Coronal returned with accounts of Roldan's contumacy, the Adelantado
proclaimed him and his followers traitors. That shrewd rebel, however, did
not suffer his men to remain within either the seduction of promise or the
terror of menace; he immediately set out on his march for his promised
land of Xaragua, trusting to impair every honest principle and virtuous
tie of his misguided followers by a life of indolence and libertinage.

In the meantime the mischievous effects of his intrigues among the
caciques became more and more apparent. No sooner had the Adelantado left
Fort Conception, than a conspiracy was formed among the natives to
surprise it. Guarionex was at the head of this conspiracy, moved by the
instigations of Roldan, who had promised him protection and assistance,
and led on by the forlorn hope, in this distracted state of the Spanish
forces, of relieving his paternal domains from the intolerable domination
of usurping strangers. Holding secret communications with his tributary
caciques, it was concerted that they should all rise simultaneously and
massacre the soldiery, quartered in small parties in their villages; while
he, with a chosen force, should surprise the fortress of Conception. The
night of the full moon was fixed upon for the insurrection.