Execution
Carvajal was sentenced to death by the royalists after being wounded and captured at the Battle of Jaquijahuana. American historian William H. Prescott collected a number of details about the execution, claiming that Carvajal was not gravely troubled by the sentence, remarking simply, basta matar": "They can only kill me." He refused confession offered by the priests and did not accept his last rites, asking:
| “ | But of what use would that be? I have nothing that lies heavy on my conscience, unless it be, indeed, the debt of half a real to a shopkeeper in Seville, which I forgot to pay before leaving the country. | ” |
According to Prescott, Carvajal did admit guests throughout his last day but treated his interlocutors to his usual cutting sarcasm. When a former enemy, once vanquished in battle by Carvajal, came to offer his services to the condemned rebel, Carvajal rebuked him caustically:
| “ | And what service can you do me? Can you set me free? If you cannot do that, you can do nothing. If I spared your life, as you say, it was probably because I did not think it worthwhile to take it. | ” |
Carvajal's only complaint emerged when his executioners arrived to carry him to the place of execution. Upon being bound and forced into a narrow basket, Carvajal ecxlaimed, "¡Niño en cuna y viejo en cuna!"—"Cradles for infants and now cradles for old men as well!" Carvajal's decapitated head was exhibited on a pike next to Pizarro's at the gates of Lima.
Carvajal remains a folkloric character in Peru: One legend made him the illegitimate son of the Spanish-Italian tyrant Cesare Borgia; Ricardo Palma pointed out in the Tradiciones peruanas that Carvajal was in fact Borgia's senior by 10 years, their only parentage, he added, being "that of cruelty."
Read more about this topic: Francisco De Carvajal
Famous quotes containing the word execution:
“Some hours seem not to be occasion for any deed, but for resolves to draw breath in. We do not directly go about the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but shut our doors behind us and ramble with prepared mind, as if the half were already done. Our resolution is taking root or hold on the earth then, as seeds first send a shoot downward which is fed by their own albumen, ere they send one upward to the light.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It’s better to live somehow than not at all.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)