21 Dec In your plans you must never forget the ending (ROBERT GREENE)
In 1510 a ship set out from the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) for Venezuela, where it was to rescue a besieged Spanish colony. Several miles out of port, a stowaway climbed out of a provision chest: Vasco Nunez de Balboa, a noble Spaniard who had come to the New World in search of gold but had fallen into debt and had escaped his creditors by hiding in the chest. Balboa had been obsessed with gold ever since Columbus had re-turned to Spain from his voyages with tales of a fabulous but as yet undiscovered kingdom called El Dorado. Balboa was one of the first adventurers to come in search of Columbus’s land of gold, and he had decided from the beginning that he would be the one to find it, through sheer audacity and single-mindedness. Now that he was free of his creditors, nothing would stop him. Unfortunately the ship’s owner, a wealthy jurist named Francisco Fernandez de Enciso, was furious when told of the stowaway, and he ordered that Balboa be left on the first island they came across. Before they found any island, however, Enciso received news that the colony he was to rescue had been abandoned. This was Balboa’s chance. He told the sailors of his previous voyages to Panama, and of the rumors he had heard of gold in the area. The excited sailors convinced Enciso to spare Balboa’s life, and to establish a colony in Panama. Weeks later they named their new settlement “Darien.” Darien’s first governor was Enciso, but Balboa was not a man to let others steal the initiative. He campaigned against Enciso among the sailors, who eventually made it clear that they preferred him as governor. Enciso fled to Spain, fearing for his life. Months later, when a representative of the Spanish crown arrived to establish himself as the new, official governor of Darien, he was turned away. On his return voyage to Spain, this man drowned; the drowning was accidental, but under Spanish law, Balboa had murdered the governor and usurped his position. Balboa’s bravado had got him out of scrapes before, but now his hopes of wealth and glory seemed doomed. To lay claim to El Dorado, should he discover it, he would need the approval of the Spanish king—which, as an outlaw, he would never receive. There was only one solution. Panamanian Indians had told Balboa of a vast ocean on the other side of the Central American isthmus, and had said that by traveling south upon this western coast, he would reach a fabulous land of gold, called by a name that to his ears sounded like “Biru.” Balboa decided he would cross the treacherous jungles of Panama and become the first European to bathe his feet in this new ocean. From there he would march on El Dorado. If he did this on Spain’s behalf, he would obtain the eternal gratitude of the king, and would secure his own reprieve–only he had to act before Spanish authorities came to arrest him. In 1513, then, Balboa set out, with 190 soldiers. Halfway across the isthmus (some ninety miles wide at that point), only sixty soldiers remained, many having succumbed to the harsh conditions—the blood-sucking insects, the torrential rainfall, fever. Finally, from a mountaintop, Balboa became the first European to lay eyes on the Pacific Ocean. Days later he marched in his armor into its waters, bearing the banner of Castile and claiming all its seas, lands, and islands in the name of the Spanish throne. Indians from the area greeted Balboa with gold, jewels, and precious pearls, the like of which he had never seen. When he asked where these had come from, the Indians pointed south, to the land of the Incas. But Balboa had only a few soldiers left. For the moment, he decided, he should return to Darien, send the jewels and gold to Spain as a token of good will, and ask for a large army to aid him in the conquest of El Dorado. When news reached Spain of Balboa’s bold crossing of the isthmus, his discovery of the western ocean, and his planned conquest of El Do-rado, the former criminal became a hero. He was instantly proclaimed governor of the new land. But before the king and queen received word of his discovery, they had already sent a dozen ships, under the command of a man named Pedro Arias Davila, “Pedrarias,” with orders to arrest Balboa for murder and to take command of the colony. By the time Pedrarias arrived in Panama, he had learned that Balboa had been pardoned, and that he was to share the governorship with the former outlaw. All the same, Balboa felt uneasy. Gold was his dream, El Dorado his only desire. In pursuit of this goal he had nearly died many times over, and to share the wealth and glory with a newcomer would be intolerable. He also soon discovered that Pedrarias was a jealous, bitter man, and equally unhappy with the situation. Once again, the only solution for Balboa was to seize the initiative by proposing to cross the jungle with a larger army, carrying ship-building materials and tools. Once on the Pa-cific coast, he would create an armada with which to conquer the Incas. Surprisingly enough, Pedrarias agreed to the plan—perhaps sensing it would never work. Hundreds died in this second march through the jun-gle, and the timber they carried rotted in the torrential rains. Balboa, as usual, was undaunted—no power in the world could thwart his plan—and on arriving at the Pacific he began to cut down trees for new lumber. But the men remaining to him were too few and too weak to mount an inva-sion, and once again Balboa had to return to Darien. Pedrarias had in any case invited Balboa back to discuss a new plan, and on the outskirts of the settlement, the explorer was met by Francisco Pizarro, an old friend who had accompanied him on his first crossing of the isthmus. But this was a trap: Leading one hundred soldiers, Pizarro surrounded his former friend, arrested him, and returned him to Pedrarias, who tried him on charges of rebellion. A few days later Balboa’s head fell into a basket, along with those of his most trusted followers. Years later Pizarro himself reached Peru, and Balboa’s deeds were forgotten.
Interpretation
Most men are ruled by the heart, not the head. Their plans are vague, and when they meet obstacles they improvise. But improvisation will only bring you as far as the next crisis, and is never a substitute for thinking several steps ahead and planning to the end. Balboa had a dream of glory and wealth, and a vague plan to reach it. Yet his bold deeds, and his discovery of the Pacific, are largely forgotten, for he committed what in the world of power is the ultimate sin: He went part way, leaving the door open for others to take over. A real man of power would have had the prudence to see the dangers in the distance—the rivals who would want to share in the conquests, the vultures that would hover once they heard the word “gold.” Balboa should have kept his knowledge of the Incas secret until after he had conquered Peru. Only then would his wealth, and his head, have been secure.
The 48 laws of power
ROBERT GREENE
