Your Majesty, I request an elimination of Francisco Pizarro from this sacred and holy mission.

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

Your Majesty,

I, Miguel Estete, your humble servant, am writing this letter to report on the various issues that have arisen since we left our well-governed country. I am to report on Francisco Pizarro, our inept and ineffectual leader, the vicious inhabitants that we have encountered, and the progress of our expedition.

Your Highness may find this advice to be quite astounding, but I request an elimination of Francisco Pizarro from this sacred and holy mission. My reasons being his foolhardy ideas and disrespectful attitude towards your Excellency. Evidently, his unacceptable manner disgraces not only your name. He has absolutely no respect for respected figures, and has proved this so by, as I was enquiring about his fragile state as way of a passing comment, he foolishly stated that your highness is wicked, his exact words being “If it’s wickedness I’m sure the crown can guess it as soon as the Army”. Indeed, you must not let such a sly, deceiving man take charge of such an honourable mission. Why, he even considers himself above representatives of the king and that he need not wait for them when it comes to important ceremonial procedures, for example, when our weapons were being blessed. May I also add, your majesty, that Francisco Pizarro may be slightly too old to take charge of such a royal escapade for he is indeed over 60 years in age. He is frequently ill and complains of pains in his side often, which, I may add, was where he was stabbed years ago. His wound may still ache but it will also cripple him further in battle against those who deny our faith. He is not fit to lead such a mission, and his arrogance irks us all, for it will be his downfall if he doesn’t watch out. I once asked about his health, yet he retorted with such fury as a true soldier should not. The fact that he is unable to bear past wounds further stresses the fact that he is and always will be unfit to lead our gallant troops. Pizarro’s incompetence never ceases to dampen our troupe’s spirits, once when he threatened our troops, which in a way I suppose is his crude way of spurring our troops onwards, and was evident when the army were preparing to confront the Incas. He encouraged them onwards by stating that in each path lies death, so death may as well be honourable. In his perspective, death is evident, though I must say that those words did nothing to encourage our troops, and merely dampened their spirits.

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We have travelled far, and landed in a strange yet intriguing country. There will be plenty of work for us to do as every living being residing here is heathen. We will soon correct their beliefs and proceed to conquer the land in your name. There are plenty of things to say about these heathens which shocked us at first through their different, devilish ways. For one thing, they refer to the sun as their supreme and omnipotent god! By worshipping such an object shames our beloved Christ and we will put a stop to these blasphemous acts at once. Would you believe that these pagans worship the sun, and have even christened it “Inca”? They call him the son of the sun itself, and this is proof of their idolatry and wrong doings. It is well known that they make huge sacrifices of resources such as cattle to this blood thirsty god!

There are quite a few things that have let us down, the first being that we are only a hundred or so men whereas these savages outnumber us completely. My dear lord, if I was in such a position that Pizarro is in now; I would have never made such a mistake, for a conquest would not be so without a large army. It would do us all good if you were to replace Pizarro with myself, and put me in charge of this holy mission. Our mission has not necessarily been changed, but it has slowed down immensely due to our hopeless leader. Pizarro constantly reminds us that he is above us all, and boasts that he could slay these pagans without reinforcements. You can imagine what an insult that is, for your majesty is the one who launched this mission. I do bring good news to you, that being that the conversions are going splendidly. We continue to convert these sinners and our forgiving god accepts them into our faith with open arms. Your Excellency’s strength and leading qualities have astounded these barbarians and they have submitted willingly to our faith, repenting their sins and obeying our every command which of course, is due to your highness’s good leading qualities.

Did I forget to mention that Pizarro, the foolish one, has shamed you greatly? He has acted in such a manner as to let down our entire army. They are fed up and anxious to finish this sacred mission. There are fights breaking out and constant talk of mutiny between our troops. Their shifty glances and sneaky gestures have me extremely worried and have left me feeling resentful towards that irresponsible man, Pizarro. To be quite honest, Pizarro has also chosen the wrong place to settle for the hard ground, vulnerable and open ground have all our men agitated. The only way to calm the situation would be to execute a removal of Pizarro, for he is neither fit nor qualified to lead this god sent mission.

We have quite a young soldier within our camp that goes by the name of Martin. Pizarro has grown fond of this promising lad and it worries me that the boy will neglect his true duties as a warrior, and follow in our foolish leader’s footsteps. Pizarro feeds young Martin’s mind against your majesty. Lies have been told of your majesty and his wonderful armies, all demoralising and too blasphemous to write on paper, for the devil’s words would burn through this parchment itself. I once heard him say “Army loyalty is blasphemy. The world of soldiers is a yard of ungrowable children. They play with ribbons and make up ceremonies just to keep out the rest of the world.” This should be taken seriously, and I hope that Martin doesn’t take after Pizarro’s vile ways.

Finally, I wish to express my views on Pizarro’s strategy. It is poor and extremely inadequate. He wishes to go forth with an utter lack of planning which could cost us many men his strategy being utterly hopeless. I do hope that your highness will not accuse me of boasting, but I am sure that my experience in this field would be much better than Pizarro’s difficult and wrong ways. He considers his plans to be the best, yet I am sure our plans will go astray if Pizarro did organise them, however poorly they may be.

I wish to say that unlike some I know, I may be your most faithful through this holy mission, and the suggestions above may be of good use if our plans are to progress.

In our Lord’s name, I end this letter

Your faithful and honourable servant

Miguel Estete

By Pooja Ramchandani 10M

Ms Gower

English