Christopher Columbus and the New World - Book 6



BOOK 6

CHAPTER V.
THE THIRD VOYAGE

Columbus was at sea again; firm ground to him, although so treacherous and 
unstable to most of us; and as he saw the Spanish coast sinking down on 
the horizon he could shake himself free from his troubles, and feel that 
once more he was in a situation of which he was master. He first touched 
at Porto Santo, where, if the story of his residence there be true, there 
must have been potent memories for him in the sight of the long white 
beach and the plantations, with the Governor's house beyond. He stayed 
there only a few hours and then crossed over to Madeira, anchoring in the 
Bay of Funchal, where he took in wood and water. As it was really 
unnecessary for him to make a port so soon after leaving, there was 
probably some other reason for his visit to these islands; perhaps a 
family reason; perhaps nothing more historically important than the desire 
to look once more on scenes of bygone happiness, for even on the page of 
history every event is not necessarily big with significance. From Madeira 
he took a southerly course to the Canary Islands, and on June 16th 
anchored at Gomera, where he found a French warship with two Spanish 
prizes, all of which put to sea as the Admiral's fleet approached. On June 
21st, when he sailed from Gomera, he divided his fleet of six vessels into 
two squadrons. Three ships were despatched direct to Espanola, for the 
supplies which they carried were urgently needed there. These three ships 
were commanded by trustworthy men: Pedro de Arana, a brother of Beatriz, 
Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, and Juan Antonio Colombo--this last no other 
than a cousin of Christopher's from Genoa. The sons of Domenico's 
provident younger brother had not prospered, while the sons of improvident 
Domenico were now all in high places; and these three poor cousins, 
hearing of Christopher's greatness, and deciding that use should be made 
of him, scraped together enough money to send one of their number to 
Spain. The Admiral always had a sound family feeling, and finding that 
cousin Antonio had sea experience and knew how to handle a ship he gave 
him command of one of the caravels on this voyage--a command of which he 
proved capable and worthy. From these three captains, after giving them 
full sailing directions for reaching Espanola, Columbus parted company off 
the island of Ferro. He himself stood on a southerly course towards the 
Cape Verde Islands. 

His plan on this voyage was to find the mainland to the southward, of 
which he had heard rumours in Espanola. Before leaving Spain he had 
received a letter from an eminent lapidary named Ferrer who had travelled 
much in the east, and who assured him that if he sought gold and precious 
stones he must go to hot lands, and that the hotter the lands were, and 
the blacker the inhabitants, the more likely he was to find riches there. 
This was just the kind of theory to suit Columbus, and as he sailed 
towards the Cape Verde Islands he was already in imagination gathering 
gold and pearls on the shores of the equatorial continent. 

He stayed for about a week at the Cape Verde Islands, getting in 
provisions and cattle, and curiously observing the life of the Portuguese 
lepers who came in numbers to the island of Buenavista to be cured there 
by eating the flesh and bathing in the blood of turtles. It was not an 
inspiriting week which he spent in that dreary place and enervating 
climate, with nothing to see but the goats feeding among the scrub, the 
turtles crawling about the sand, and the lepers following the turtles. It 
began to tell on the health of the crew, so he weighed anchor on July 5th 
and stood on a southwesterly course. 

This third voyage, which was destined to be the most important of all, and 
the material for which had cost him so much time and labour, was 
undertaken in a very solemn and determined spirit. His health, which he 
had hoped to recover in Spain, had been if anything damaged by his 
worryings with officialdom there; and although he was only forty-seven 
years of age he was in some respects already an old man. He had entered, 
although happily he did not know it, on the last decade of his life; and 
was already beginning to suffer from the two diseases, gout and 
ophthalmia, which were soon to undermine his strength and endurance. 
Religion of a mystical fifteenth-century sort was deepening in him; he had 
undertaken this voyage in the name of the Holy Trinity; and to that 
theological entity he had resolved to dedicate the first new land that he 
should sight. 

For ten days light baffling winds impeded his progress; but at the end of 
that time the winds fell away altogether, and the voyagers found 
themselves in that flat equatorial calm known to mariners as the Doldrums. 
The vertical rays of the sun shone blisteringly down upon them, making the 
seams of the ships gape and causing the unhappy crews mental as well as 
bodily distress, for they began to fear that they had reached that zone of 
fire which had always been said to exist in the southern ocean. 

Day after day the three ships lay motionless on the glassy water, with 
wood-work so hot as to burn the hands that touched it, with the meat 
putrefying in the casks below, and the water running from the loosened 
casks, and no one with courage and endurance enough to venture into the 
stifling hold even to save the provisions. And through all this the 
Admiral, racked with gout, had to keep a cheerful face and assure his 
prostrate crew that they would soon be out of it. 

There were showers of rain sometimes, but the moisture in that baking 
atmosphere only added to its stifling and enervating effects. All the 
while, however, the great slow current of the Atlantic was moving 
westward, and there came a day when a heavenly breeze, stirred in the 
torrid air and the musical talk of ripples began to rise again from the 
weedy stems of the ships. They sailed due west, always into a cooler and 
fresher atmosphere; but still no land was sighted, although pelicans and 
smaller birds were continually seen passing from south-west to north- 
east. As provisions were beginning to run low, Columbus decided on the 
31st July to alter his course to north-by-east, in the hope of reaching 
the island of Dominica. But at mid-day his servant Alonso Perez, happening 
to go to the masthead, cried out that there was land in sight; and sure 
enough to the westward there rose three peaks of land united at the base. 
Here was the kind of coincidence which staggers even the unbeliever. 
Columbus had promised to dedicate the first land he saw to the Trinity; 
and here was the land, miraculously provided when he needed it most, three 
peaks in one peak, in due conformity with the requirements of the blessed 
Saint Athanasius. The Admiral was deeply affected; the God of his belief 
was indeed a good friend to him; and he wrote down his pious conviction 
that the event was a miracle, and summoned all hands to sing the Salve 
Regina, with other hymns in praise of God and the Virgin Mary. The island 
was duly christened La Trinidad. By the hour of Compline (9 o'clock in the 
evening) they had come up with the south coast of the island, but it was 
the next day before the Admiral found a harbour where he could take in 
water. No natives were to be seen, although there were footprints on the 
shore and other signs of human habitation. 

He continued all day to sail slowly along the shore of the island, the 
green luxuriance of which astonished him; and sometimes he stood out from 
the coast to the southward as he made a long board to round this or that 
point. It must have been while reaching out in this way to the southward 
that he saw a low shore on his port hand some sixty miles to the south of 
Trinidad, and that his sight, although he did not know it, rested for the 
first time on the mainland of South America. The land seen was the low 
coast to the west of the Orinoco, and thinking that it was an island he 
gave it the name of Isla Sancta. 

On the 2nd of August they were off the south-west of Trinidad, and saw the 
first inhabitants in the shape of a canoe full of armed natives, who 
approached the ships with threatening gestures. Columbus had brought out 
some musicians with him, possibly for the purpose of impressing the 
natives, and perhaps with the idea of making things a little more cheerful 
in Espanola; and the musicians were now duly called upon to give a 
performance, a tambourine-player standing on the forecastle and beating 
the rhythm for the ships' boys to dance to. The effect was other than was 
anticipated, for the natives immediately discharged a thick flight of 
arrows at the musicians, and the music and dancing abruptly ceased. 
Eventually the Indians were prevailed upon to come on board the two 
smaller ships and to receive gifts, after which they departed and were 
seen no more. Columbus landed and made some observations of the vegetation 
and climate of Trinidad, noticing that the fruits and-trees were similar 
to those of Espanola, and that oysters abounded, as well as "very large, 
infinite fish, and parrots as large as hens." 

He saw another peak of the mainland to the northwest, which was the 
peninsula of Paria, and to which Columbus, taking it to be another island, 
gave the name of Isla de Gracia. Between him and this land lay a narrow 
channel through which a mighty current was flowing--that press of waters 
which, sweeping across the Atlantic from Africa, enters the Caribbean Sea, 
sprays round the Gulf of Mexico, and turns north again in the current 
known as the Gulf Stream. While his ships were anchored at the entrance to 
this channel and Columbus was wondering how he should cross it, a mighty 
flood of water suddenly came down with a roar, sending a great surging 
wave in front of it. The vessels were lifted up as though by magic; two of 
them dragged their anchors from the bottom, and the other one broke her 
cable. This flood was probably caused by a sudden flush of fresh water 
from one of the many mouths of the Orinoco; but to Columbus, who had no 
thought of rivers in his mind, it was very alarming. Apparently, however, 
there was nothing for it but to get through the channel, and having sent 
boats on in front to take soundings and see that there was clear water he 
eventually piloted his little squadron through, with his heart in his 
mouth and his eyes fixed on the swinging eddies and surging circles of the 
channel. Once beyond it he was in the smooth water of the Gulf of Paria. 
He followed the westerly coast of Trinidad to the north until he came to a 
second channel narrower than the first, through which the current boiled 
with still greater violence, and to which he gave the name of Dragon's 
Mouth. This is the channel between the northwesterly point of Trinidad and 
the eastern promontory of Paria. Columbus now began to be bewildered, for 
he discovered that the water over the ship's side was fresh water, and he 
could not make out where it came from. Thinking that the peninsula of 
Paria was an island, and not wishing to attempt the dangerous passage of 
the Dragon's Mouth, he decided to coast along the southern shore of the 
land opposite, hoping to be able to turn north round its western 
extremity. 

Sweeter blew the breezes, fresher grew the water, milder and more balmy 
the air, greener and deeper the vegetation of this beautiful region. The 
Admiral was ill with the gout, and suffering such pain from his eyes that 
he was sometimes blinded by it; but the excitement of the strange 
phenomena surrounding him kept him up, and his powers of observation, 
always acute, suffered no diminution. There were no inhabitants to be seen 
as they sailed along the coast, but monkeys climbed and chattered in the 
trees by the shore, and oysters were found clinging to the branches that 
dipped into the water. At last, in a bay where they anchored to take in 
water, a native canoe containing three, men was seen cautiously 
approaching; and the men, who were shy, were captured by the device of a 
sailor jumping on to the gunwale of the canoe and overturning it, the 
natives being easily caught in the water, and afterwards soothed and 
captivated by the unfailing attraction of hawks' bells. They were tall men 
with long hair, and they told Columbus that the name of their country was 
Paria; and when they were asked about other inhabitants they pointed to 
the west and signified that there was a great population in that 
direction. 

On the 10th of August 1498 a party landed on this coast and formally took 
possession of it in the name of the Sovereigns of Spain. By an unlucky 
chance Columbus himself did not land. His eyes were troubling him so much 
that he was obliged to lie down in his cabin, and the formal act of 
possession was performed by a deputy. If he had only known! If he could 
but have guessed that this was indeed the mainland of a New World that did 
not exist even in his dreams, what agonies he would have suffered rather 
than permit any one else to pronounce the words of annexation! But he lay 
there in pain and suffering, his curious mystical mind occupied with a 
conception very remote indeed from the truth. 

For in that fertile hotbed of imagination, the Admiral's brain, a new and 
staggering theory had gradually been taking shape. As his ships had been 
wafted into this delicious region, as the airs had become sweeter, the 
vegetation more luxuriant, and the water of the sea fresher,--he had 
solemnly arrived at the conclusion that he was approaching the region of 
the true terrestrial Paradise: the Garden of Eden that some of the Fathers 
had declared to be situated in the extreme east of the Old World, and in a 
region so high that the flood had not overwhelmed it. Columbus, thinking 
hard in his cabin, blood and brain a little fevered, comes to the 
conclusion that the world is not round but pear-shaped. He knows that all 
this fresh water in the sea must come from a great distance and from no 
ordinary river; and he decides that its volume and direction have been 
acquired in its fall from the apex of the pear, from the very top of the 
world, from the Garden of Eden itself. It was a most beautiful conception; 
a theory worthy to be fitted to all the sweet sights and sounds in the 
world about him; but it led him farther and farther away from the truth, 
and blinded him to knowledge and understanding of what he had actually 
accomplished. 

He had thought the coast of Cuba the mainland, and he now began to 
consider it at least possible that the peninsula of Paria was mainland 
also--another part of the same continent. That was the truth--Paria was 
the mainland--and if he had not been so bemused by his dreams and theories 
he might have had some inkling of the real wonder and significance of his 
discovery. But no; in his profoundly unscientific mind there was little of 
that patience which holds men back from theorising and keeps them ready to 
receive the truth. He was patient enough in doing, but in thinking he was 
not patient at all. No sooner had he observed a fact than he must find a 
theory which would bring it into relation with the whole of his knowledge; 
and if the facts would not harmonise of themselves he invented a scheme of 
things by which they were forced into harmony. He was indeed a Darwinian 
before his time, an adept in the art of inventing causes to fit facts, and 
then proving that the facts sprang from the causes; but his origins were 
tangible, immovable things of rock and soil that could be seen and visited 
by other men, and their true relation to the terrestrial phenomena 
accurately established; so that his very proofs were monumental, and 
became themselves the advertisements of his profound misjudgment. But 
meanwhile he is the Admiral of the Ocean Seas, and can "make it so"; and 
accordingly, in a state of mental instability, he makes the Gulf of Paria 
to be a slope of earth immediately below the Garden of Eden, although 
fortunately he does not this time provide a sworn affidavit of trembling 
ships' boys to confirm his discovery. 

Meanwhile also here were pearls; the native women wore ropes of them all 
over their bodies, and a fair store of them were bartered for pieces of 
broken crockery. Asked as usual about the pearls the natives, also as 
usual, pointed vaguely to the west and south-west, and explained that 
there were more pearls in that direction. But the Admiral would not tarry. 
Although he believed that he was within reach of Eden and pearls, he was 
more anxious to get back to Espanola and send the thrilling news to Spain 
than he was to push on a little farther and really assure himself of the 
truth. How like Christopher that was! Ideas to him were of more value than 
facts, as indeed they are to the world at large; but one is sometimes led 
to wonder whether he did not sometimes hesitate to turn his ideas into 
facts for very fear that they should turn out to be only ideas. Was he, in 
his relations with Spain and the world, a trader in the names rather than 
the substance of things? We have seen him going home to Spain and 
announcing the discovery of the Golden Chersonesus, although he had only 
discovered what he erroneously supposed to be an indication of it; 
proclaiming the discovery of the Ophir of Solomon without taking the 
trouble to test for himself so tremendous an assumption; and we now see 
him hurrying away to dazzle Spain with the story that he has discovered 
the Garden of Eden, without even trying to push on for a few days more to 
secure so much as a cutting from the Tree of Life. 

These are grave considerations; for although happily the Tree of Life is 
now of no importance to any human being, the doings of Admiral Christopher 
were of great importance to himself and to his fellow-men at that time, 
and are still to-day, through the infinite channels in which human thought 
and action run and continue thoughout the world, of grave importance to 
us. Perhaps this is not quite the moment, now that the poor Admiral is 
lying in pain and weakness and not quite master of his own mind, to 
consider fully how he stands in this matter of honesty; we will leave it 
for the present until he is well again, or better still, until his tale of 
life and action is complete, and comes as a whole before the bar of human 
judgment. 

On August 11th Columbus turned east again after having given up the 
attempt to find a passage to the north round Paria. There were practical 
considerations that brought him to this action. As the water was growing 
shoaler and shoaler he had sent a caravel of light draft some way further 
to the westward, and she reported that there lay ahead of her a great 
inner bay or gulf consisting of almost entirely fresh water. Provisions, 
moreover, were running short, and were, as usual, turning bad; the 
Admiral's health made vigorous action of any kind impossible for him; he 
was anxious about the condition of Espanola--anxious also, as we have 
seen, to send this great news home; and he therefore turned back and 
decided to risk the passage of the Dragon's Mouth. He anchored in the 
neighbouring harbour until the wind was in the right quarter, and with 
some trepidation put his ships into the boiling tideway. When they were in 
the middle of the passage the wind fell to a dead calm, and the ships, 
with their sails hanging loose, were borne on the dizzy surface of eddies, 
overfalls, and whirls of the tide. Fortunately there was deep water in the 
passage, and the strength of the current carried them safely through. Once 
outside they bore away to the northward, sighting the islands of Tobago 
and Grenada and, turning westward again, came to the islands of Cubagua 
and Margarita, where three pounds of pearls were bartered from the 
natives. A week after the passage of the Dragon's Mouth Columbus sighted 
the south coast of Espanola, which coast he made at a point a long way to 
the east of the new settlement that he had instructed Bartholomew to 
found; and as the winds were contrary, and he feared it might take him a 
long time to beat up against them, he sent a boat ashore with a letter 
which was to be delivered by a native messenger to the Adelantado. The 
letter was delivered; a few days later a caravel was sighted which 
contained Bartholomew himself; and once more, after a long separation, 
these two friends and brothers were united. 

The see-saw motion of all affairs with which Columbus had to do was in 
full swing. We have seen him patching up matters in Espanola; hurrying to 
Spain just in time to rescue his damaged reputation and do something to 
restore it; and now when he had come back it was but a sorry tale that 
Bartholomew had to tell him. A fortress had been built at the Hayna gold-
mines, but provisions had been so scarce that there had been something 
like a famine among the workmen there; no digging had been done, no 
planting, no making of the place fit for human occupation and industry. 
Bartholomew had been kept busy in collecting the native tribute, and in 
planning out the beginnings of the settlement at the mouth of the river 
Ozema, which was at first called the New Isabella, but was afterwards 
named San Domingo in honour of old Domenico at Savona. The cacique 
Behechio had been giving trouble; had indeed marched out with an army 
against Bartholomew, but had been more or less reconciled by the 
intervention of his sister Anacaona, widow of the late Caonabo, who had 
apparently transferred her affections to Governor Bartholomew. The battle 
was turned into a friendly pagan festival--one of the last ever held on 
that once happy island--in which native girls danced in a green grove, 
with the beautiful Anacaona, dressed only in garlands, carried on a litter 
in their midst. 

But in the Vega Real, where a chapel had been built by the priests of the 
neighbouring settlement who were beginning to make converts, trouble had 
arisen in consequence of an outrage on the wife of the cacique Guarionex. 
The chapel was raided, the shrine destroyed, and the sacred vessels 
carried off. The Spaniards seized a number of Indians whom they suspected 
of having had a hand in the desecration, and burned them at the stake in 
the most approved manner of the Inquisition--a hideous punishment that 
fanned the remaining embers of the native spirit into flame, and produced 
a hostile combination of Guarionex and several other caciques, whose 
rebellion it took the Adelantado some trouble and display of arms to 
quench. 

But the worst news of all was the treacherous revolt of Francisco Roldan, 
a Spaniard who had once been a servant of the Admiral's, and who had been 
raised by him to the office of judge in the island--an able creature, but, 
like too many recipients of Christopher's favour, a treacherous rascal at 
bottom. As soon as the Admiral's back was turned Roldan had begun to make 
mischief, stirring up the discontent that was never far below the surface 
of life in the colony, and getting together a large band of rebellious 
ruffians. He had a plan to murder Bartholomew Columbus and place himself 
at the head of the colony, but this fell through. Then, in Bartholomew's 
absence, he had a passage with James Columbus, who had now returned to the 
island and had resumed his. official duties at Isabella. Bartholomew, who 
was at another part of the coast collecting tribute, had sent a caravel 
laden with cotton to Isabella, and well-meaning James had her drawn up on 
the beach. Roldan took the opportunity to represent this innocent action 
as a sign of the intolerable autocracy of the Columbus family, who did not 
even wish a vessel to be in a condition to sail for Spain with news of 
their misdeeds. Insolent Roldan formally asks James to send the caravel to 
Spain with supplies; poor James refuses and, perhaps being at bottom 
afraid of Roldan and his insolences, despatches him to the Vega Real with 
a force to bring to order some caciques who had been giving trouble. 
Possibly to his surprise, although not to ours, Roldan departs with 
alacrity at the head of seventy armed men. Honest, zealous James, no 
doubt; but also, we begin to fear, stupid James. 

The Vega Real was the most attractive part of the colony, and the scene of 
infinite idleness and debauchery in the early days of the Spanish 
settlement. As Margarite and other mutineers had acted, so did Roldan and 
his soldiers now act, making sallies against several of the chain of forts 
that stretched across the island, and even upon Isabella itself; and 
returning to the Vega to the enjoyment of primitive wild pleasures. Roldan 
and Bartholomew Columbus stalked each other about the island with armed 
forces for several months, Roldan besieging Bartholomew in the fortress at 
the Vega, which he had occupied in Roldan's absence, and trying to starve 
him out there. The arrival in February 1498 of the two ships which had 
been sent out from Spain in advance, and which brought also the news of 
the Admiral's undamaged favour at Court, and of the royal confirmation of 
Bartholomew's title, produced for the moment a good moral effect; Roldan 
went and sulked in the mountains, refusing to have any parley or 
communication with the Adelantado, declining indeed to treat with any one 
until the Admiral himself should return. In the meantime his influence 
with the natives was strong enough to produce a native revolt, which 
Bartholomew had only just succeeded in suppressing when Christopher 
arrived on August 30th. 

The Admiral was not a little distressed to find that the three ships from 
which he had parted company at Ferro had not yet arrived. His own voyage 
ought to have taken far longer than theirs; they had now been nine weeks 
at sea, and there was nothing to account for their long delay. When at 
last they did appear, however they brought with them only a new 
complication. They had lost their way among the islands and had been 
searching about for Espanola, finally making a landfall there on the coast 
of Xaragua, the south-western province of the island, where Roldan and his 
followers were established. Roldan had received them and, concealing the 
fact of his treachery, procured a large store of provisions from them, his 
followers being meanwhile busy among the crews of the ships inciting them 
to mutiny and telling them of the oppression of the Admiral's rule and the 
joys of a lawless life. The gaol-birds were nothing loth; after eight 
weeks at sea a spell ashore in this pleasant land, with all kinds of 
indulgences which did not come within the ordinary regimen of convicts and 
sailors, greatly appealing to them. The result was that more than half of 
the crews mutinied and joined Roldan, and the captains were obliged to put 
to sea with their small loyal remnant. Carvajal remained behind in order 
to try to persuade Roldan to give himself up; but Roldan had no such idea, 
and Carvajal had to make his way by land to San Domingo, where he made his 
report to the Admiral. Roldan has in fact delivered a kind of ultimatum. 
He will surrender to no one but the Admiral, and that only on condition 
that he gets a free pardon. If negotiations are opened, Roldan will treat 
with no one but Carvajal. The Admiral, whose grip of the situation is 
getting weaker and weaker, finds himself in a difficulty. His loyal army 
is only some seventy strong, while Roldan has, of disloyal settlers, gaol-
birds, and sailors, much more than that. The Admiral, since he cannot 
reduce his enemy's force by capturing them, seeks to do it by bribing 
them; and the greatest bribe that he can think of to offer to these 
malcontents is that any who like may have a free passage home in the five 
caravels which are now waiting to return to Spain. To such a pass have 
things come in the paradise of Espanola! But the rabble finds life 
pleasant enough in Xaragua, where they are busy with indescribable 
pleasures; and for the moment there is no great response to this 
invitation to be gone. Columbus therefore despatches his ships, with such 
rabble of colonists, gaol-birds, and mariners as have already had their 
fill both of pain and pleasure, and writes his usual letter to the 
Sovereigns--half full of the glories of the new discoveries he has made, 
the other half setting forth the evil doings of Roldan, and begging that 
he may be summoned to Spain for trial there. Incidentally, also, he 
requests a further licence for two years for the capture and despatch of 
slaves to Spain. So the vessels sail back on October 18, 1498, and the 
Admiral turns wearily to the task of disentangling the web of difficulty 
that has woven itself about him. 

Carvajal and Ballester--another loyal captain--were sent with a letter to 
Roldan urging him to come to terms, and Carvajal and Ballester added their 
own honest persuasions. But Roldan was firm; he wished to be quit of the 
Admiral and his rule, and to live independently in the island; and of his 
followers, although some here and there showed signs of submission, the 
greater number were so much in love with anarchy that they could not be 
counted upon. For two months negotiations of a sort were continued, Roldan 
even presenting himself under a guarantee of safety at San Domingo, where 
he had a fruitless conference with the Admiral; where also he had an 
opportunity of observing what a sorry state affairs in the capital were 
in, and what a mess Columbus was making of it all. Roldan, being a simple 
man, though a rascal, had only to remain firm in order to get his way 
against a mind like the Admiral's, and get his way he ultimately did. The 
Admiral made terms of a kind most humiliating to him, and utterly 
subversive of his influence and authority. The mutineers were not only to 
receive a pardon but a certificate (good Heavens!) of good conduct. 
Caravels were to be sent to convey them to Spain; and they were to be 
permitted to carry with them all the slaves that they had collected and 
all the native young women whom they had ravished from their homes. 

Columbus signs this document on the 21st of November, and promises that 
the ships shall be ready in fifty days; and then, at his wits' end, and 
hearing of irregularities in the interior of the island, sets off with 
Bartholomew to inspect the posts and restore them to order. In his absence 
the see-saw, in due obedience to the laws that govern all see- saws, gives 
a lurch to the other side, and things go all wrong again in San Domingo. 
The preparations for the despatch of the caravels are neglected as soon as 
his back is turned; not fifty days, but nearly one hundred days elapse 
before they are ready to sail from San Domingo to Xaragua. Even then they 
are delayed by storms and head-winds; and when they do arrive Roldan and 
his company will not embark in them. The agreement has been broken; a new 
one must be made. Columbus, returning to San Domingo after long and 
harassing struggles on the other end of the see-saw, gets news of this 
deadlock, and at the same time has news from Fonseca in Spain of a far 
from agreeable character. His complaints against the people under him have 
been received by the Sovereigns and will be duly considered, but their 
Majesties have not time at the moment to go into them. That is the gist of 
it, and very cold cheer it is for the Admiral, balancing himself on this 
turbulent see-saw with anxious eyes turned to Spain for encouragement and 
approval. 

In the depression that followed the receipt of this letter he was no match 
for Roldan. He even himself took a caravel and sailed towards Xaragua, 
where he was met by Roldan, who boarded his ship and made his new 
proposals. Their impudence is astounding; and when we consider that the 
Admiral had in theory absolute powers in the island, the fact that such 
proposals could be made, not to say accepted, shows how far out of 
relation were his actual with his nominal powers. Roldan proposed that he 
should be allowed to give a number of his friends a free passage to Spain; 
that to all who should remain free grants of land should be given; and (a 
free pardon and certificate of good conduct contenting him no longer) that 
a proclamation should be made throughout the island admitting that all the 
charges of disloyalty and mutiny which had been brought against him and 
his followers were without foundation; and, finally, that he should be 
restored to his office of Alcalde Mayor or chief magistrate. 

Here was a bolus for Christopher to swallow; a bolus compounded of his own 
words, his own acts, his hope, dignity, supremacy. In dismal humiliation 
he accepted the terms, with the addition of a clause more scandalous 
still--to the effect that the mutineers reserved the right, in case the 
Admiral should fail in the exact performance of any of his promises, to 
enforce them by compulsion of arms or any other method they might think 
fit. This precious document was signed on September 28, 1499 just twelve 
months after the agreement which it was intended to replace; and the 
Admiral, sailing dismally back to San Domingo, ruefully pondered on the 
fruits of a year's delay. Even then he was trying to make excuses for 
himself, such as he made afterwards to the Sovereigns when he tried to 
explain that this shameful capitulation was invalid. That he signed under 
compulsion; that he was on board a ship, and so was not on his viceregal 
territory; that the rebels had already been tried, and that he had not the 
power to revoke a sentence which bore the authority of the Crown; that he 
had not the power to dispose of the Crown property-- desperate, agonised 
shuffling of pride and self-esteem in the coils of trial and difficulty. 
Enough of it.



CHAPTER VI.
AN INTERLUDE 

A breath of salt air again will do us no harm as a relief from these 
perilous balancings of Columbus on the see-saw at Espanola. His true work 
in this world had indeed already been accomplished. When he smote the rock 
of western discovery many springs flowed from it, and some were destined 
to run in mightier channels than that which he himself followed. Among 
other men stirred by the news of Columbus's first voyage there was one 
walking the streets of Bristol in 1496 who was fired to a similar 
enterprise--a man of Venice, in boyhood named Zuan Caboto, but now known 
in England, where he has some time been settled, as Captain John Cabot. A 
sailor and trader who has travelled much through the known sea-roads of 
this world, and has a desire to travel upon others not so well known. He 
has been in the East, has seen the caravans of Mecca and the goods they 
carried, and, like Columbus, has conceived in his mind the roundness of 
the world as a practical fact rather than a mere mathematical theory. 
Hearing of Columbus's success Cabot sets what machinery in England he has 
access to in motion to secure for him patents from King Henry VII.; which 
patents he receives on March 5, 1496. After spending a long time in 
preparation, and being perhaps a little delayed by diplomatic protests 
from the Spanish Ambassador in London, he sails from Bristol in May 1497. 

After sailing west two thousand leagues Cabot found land in the 
neighbourhood of Cape Breton, and was thus in all probability the first 
discoverer, since the Icelanders, of the mainland of the New World. He 
turned northward, sailed through the strait of Belle Isle, and came home 
again, having accomplished his task in three months. Cabot, like Columbus, 
believed he had seen the territory of the Great Khan, of whom he told the 
interested population of Bristol some strange things. He further told them 
of the probable riches of this new land if it were followed in a southerly 
direction; told them some lies also, it appears, since he said that the 
waters there were so dense with fish that his vessels could hardly move in 
them. He received a gratuity of L10 and a pension, and made a great 
sensation in Bristol by walking about the city dressed in fine silk 
garments. He took other voyages also with his son Sebastian, who followed 
with him the rapid widening stream of discovery and became Pilot Major of 
Spain, and President of the Congress appointed in 1524 to settle the 
conflicting pretensions of various discoverers; but so far as our 
narrative is concerned, having sailed across from Bristol and discovered 
the mainland of the New World some years before Columbus discovered it, 
John Cabot sails into oblivion. 

Another great conquest of the salt unknown taken place a few days before 
Columbus sailed on his third voyage. The accidental discovery of the Cape 
by Bartholomew Diaz in 1486 had not been neglected by Portugal; and the 
achievements of Columbus, while they cut off Portuguese enterprise from 
the western ocean, had only stimulated it to greater activity within its 
own spheres. Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon in July 1497; by the end of 
November he had rounded the Cape of Good Hope; and in May 1498, after a 
long voyage full of interest, peril, and hardship he had landed at Calicut 
on the shores of the true India. He came back in 1499 with a battered 
remnant, his crew disabled by sickness and exhaustion, and half his ships 
lost; but he had in fact discovered a road for trade and adventure to the 
East that was not paved with promises, dreams, or mad affidavits, but was 
a real and tangible achievement, bringing its reward in commerce and 
wealth for Portugal. At that very moment Columbus was groping round the 
mainland of South America, thinking it to be the coast of Cathay, and the 
Garden of Eden, and God knows what other cosmographical--theological 
abstractions; and Portugal, busy with her arrangements for making money, 
could afford for the moment to look on undismayed at the development of 
the mine of promises discovered by the Spanish Admiral. 

The anxiety of Columbus to communicate the names of things before he had 
made sure of their substance received another rude chastisement in the 
events that followed the receipt in Spain of his letter announcing the 
discovery of the Garden of Eden and the land of pearls. People in Spain 
were not greatly interested in his theories of the terrestrial Paradise; 
but more than one adventurer pricked up his ears at the name of pearls, 
and among the first was our old friend Alonso de Ojeda, who had returned 
some time before from Espanola and was living in Spain. His position as a 
member of Columbus's force on the second voyage and the distinction he had 
gained there gave him special opportunities of access to the letters and 
papers sent home by Columbus; and he found no difficulty in getting 
Fonseca to show him the maps and charts of the coast of Paria sent back by 
the Admiral, the veritable pearls which had been gathered, and the 
enthusiastic descriptions of the wealth of this new coast. Knowing 
something of Espanola, and of the Admiral also, and reading in the 
despatches of the turbulent condition of the colony, he had a shrewd idea 
that Columbus's hands would be kept pretty full in Espanola itself, and 
that he would have no opportunity for some time to make any more voyages 
of discovery. He therefore represented to Fonseca what a pity it would be 
if all this revenue should remain untapped just because one man had not 
time to attend to it, and he proposed that he should take out an 
expedition at his own cost and share the profits with the Crown. 

This proposal was too tempting to be refused; unlike the expeditions of 
Columbus, which were all expenditure and no revenue, it promised a chance 
of revenue without any expenditure at all. The Paria coast, having been 
discovered subsequent to the agreement made with Columbus, was considered 
by Fonseca to be open to private enterprise; and he therefore granted 
Ojeda a licence to go and explore it. Among those who went with him were 
Amerigo Vespucci and Columbus's old pilot, Juan de la Cosa, as well as 
some of the sailors who had been with the Admiral on the coast of Paria 
and had returned in the caravels which had brought his account of it back 
to Spain. Ojeda sailed on May 20, 1499; made a landfall some hundreds of 
miles to the eastward of the Orinoco, coasted thence as far as the island 
of Trinidad, and sailed along the northern coast of the peninsula of Paria 
until he came to a country where the natives built their hots on piles in 
the water, and to which he gave the name of Venezuela. It was by his 
accidental presence on this voyage that Vespucci, the meat- contractor, 
came to give his name to America--a curious story of international 
jealousies, intrigues, lawsuits, and lies which we have not the space to 
deal with here. After collecting a considerable quantity of pearls Ojeda, 
who was beginning to run short of provisions, turned eastward again and 
sought the coast of Espanola, where we shall presently meet with him 
again. 

And Ojeda was not the only person in Spain who was enticed by Columbus's 
glowing descriptions to go and look for the pearls of Paria. There was in 
fact quite a reunion of old friends of his and ours in the western ocean, 
though they went thither in a spirit far different from that of ancient 
friendship. Pedro Alonso Nino, who had also been on the Paria coast with 
Columbus, who had come home with the returning ships, and whose patience 
(for he was an exceedingly practical man) had perhaps been tried by the 
strange doings of the Admiral in the Gulf of Paria, decided that he as 
well as any one else might go and find some pearls. Nino is a poor man, 
having worked hard in all his voyagings backwards and forwards across the 
Atlantic; but he has a friend with money, one Luis Guerra, who provides 
him with the funds necessary for fitting out a small caravel about the 
size of his old ship the Nifta. Guerra, who has the money, also has a 
brother Christoval; and his conditions are that Christoval shall be given 
the command of the caravel. Practical Niflo does not care so long as he 
reaches the place where the pearls are. He also applies to Fonseca for 
licence to make discoveries; and, duly receiving it, sails from Palos in 
the beginning of June 1499, hot upon the track of Ojeda. 

They did a little quiet discovery, principally in the domain of human 
nature, caroused with the friendly natives, but attended to business all 
the time; with the result that in the following April they were back in 
Spain with a treasure of pearls out of which, after Nifio had been made 
independent for life and Guerra, Christoval, and the rest of them had 
their shares, there remained a handsome sum for the Crown. An extremely 
practical, businesslike voyage this; full of lessons for our poor 
Christopher, could he but have known and learned them. 

Yet another of our old friends profited by the Admiral's discovery. What 
Vincenti Yafiez Pinzon has been doing all these years we have no record; 
living at Palos, perhaps, doing a little of his ordinary coasting 
business, administering the estates of his brother Martin Alonso, and, 
almost for a certainty, talking pretty big about who it was that really 
did all the work in the discovery of the New World. Out of the obscurity 
of conjecture he emerges into fact in December 1499, when he is found at 
Palos fitting out four caravels for the purpose of exploring farther along 
the coast of the southern mainland. That he also was after pearls is 
pretty certain; but on the other hand he was more of a sailor than an 
adventurer, was a discoverer at heart, and had no small share of the 
family taste for sea travel. He took a more southerly course than any of 
the others and struck the coast of America south of the equator on January 
20, 1500. He sailed north past the mouths of the Amazon and Orinoco 
through the Gulf of Paria, and reached Espanola in June 1500. He only 
paused there to take in provisions, and sailed to the west in search of 
further discoveries; but he lost two of his caravels in a gale and had to 
put back to Espanola. 

He sailed thence for Palos, and reached home in September 1500, having 
added no inconsiderable share to the mass of new geographical knowledge 
that was being accumulated. In later years he took a high place in the 
maritime world of Spain. 

And finally, to complete the account of the chief minor discoveries of 
these two busy years, we must mention Pedro Alvarez Cabral of Portugal, 
who was despatched in March 1, 1500 from Lisbon to verify the discoveries 
of Da Gama. He reached Calicut six months later, losing on the voyage four 
of his caravels and most of his company. Among the lost was Bartholomew 
Diaz, the first discoverer of the Cape of Good Hope, who was on this 
voyage in a subordinate capacity, and whose bones were left to dissolve in 
the stormy waters that beat round the Cape whose barrier he was the first 
to pass. The chief event of this voyage, however, was not the reaching of 
Calicut nor the drowning of Diaz (which was chiefly of importance to 
himself, poor soul!) but the discovery of Brazil, which Cabral made in 
following the southerly course too far to the west. He landed there, in 
the Bay of Porto Seguro, on May 1, 1500, and took formal possession of the 
land for the Crown of Portugal, naming it Vera Cruz, or the Land of the 
True Cross. 

In the assumption of Columbus and his contemporaries all these doings were 
held to detract from the glory of his own achievements, and were the 
subject of endless affidavits, depositions, quarrels, arguments, proofs 
and claims in the great lawsuit that was in after years carried on between 
the Crown of Spain and the heirs of Columbus concerning his titles and 
revenues. We, however, may take a different view. With the exception of 
the discoveries of the Cape of Good Hope and the coast of Brazil all these 
enterprises were directly traceable to Columbus's own achievements and 
were inspired by his example. The things that a man can do in his own 
person are limited by the laws of time and space; it is only example and 
influence that are infinite and illimitable, and in which the spirit of 
any achievement can find true immortality.



CHAPTER VII.
THE THIRD VOYAGE (continued) 

It may perhaps be wearisome to the reader to return to the tangled and 
depressing situation in Espanola, but it cannot be half so wearisome as it 
was for Columbus, whom we left enveloped in that dark cloud of error and 
surrender in which he sacrificed his dignity and good faith to the 
impudent demands of a mutinous servant. To his other troubles in San 
Domingo the presence of this Roldan was now added; and the reinstated 
Alcalde was not long in making use of the victory he had gained. He bore 
himself with intolerable arrogance and insolence, discharging one of 
Columbus's personal bodyguard on the ground that no one should hold any 
office on the island except with his consent. He demanded grants of land 
for himself and his followers, which Columbus held himself obliged to 
concede; and the Admiral, further to pacify him, invented a very 
disastrous system of repartimientos, under which certain chiefs were 
relieved from paying tribute on condition of furnishing feudal service to 
the settlers--a system which rapidly developed into the most cruel and 
oppressive kind of slavery. The Admiral at this time also, in despair of 
keeping things quiet by his old methods of peace and conciliation, created 
a kind of police force which roamed about the island, exacting tribute and 
meting out summary punishment to all defaulters. Among other concessions 
weakly made to Roldan at this time was the gift of the Crown estate of 
Esperanza, situated in the Vega Real, whither he betook himself and 
embarked on what was nothing more nor less than a despotic reign, entirely 
ignoring the regulations and prerogatives of the Admiral, and taking 
prisoners and administering punishment just as he pleased. The Admiral was 
helpless, and thought of going back to Spain, but the condition of the 
island was such that he did not dare to leave it. Instead, he wrote a long 
letter to the Sovereigns, full of complaints against other people and 
justifications of himself, in the course of which he set forth those 
quibbling excuses for his capitulation to Roldan which we have already 
heard. And there was a pathetic request at the end of the letter that his 
son Diego might be sent out to him. As I have said, Columbus was by this 
time a prematurely old man, and feeling the clouds gathering about him, 
and the loneliness and friendlessness of his position at Espanola, he 
instinctively looked to the next generation for help, and to the presence 
of his own son for sympathy and comfort. 

It was at this moment (September 5, 1499) that a diversion arose in the 
rumour that four caravels had been seen off the western end of Espanola 
and duly reported to the Admiral; and this announcement was soon followed 
by the news that they were commanded by Ojeda, who was collecting dye- 
wood in the island forests. Columbus, although he had so far as we know 
had no previous difficulties with Ojeda, had little cause now to credit 
any adventurer with kindness towards himself; and Ojeda's secrecy in not 
reporting himself at San Domingo, and, in fact, his presence on the island 
at all without the knowledge of the Admiral, were sufficient evidence that 
he was there to serve his own ends. Some gleam of Christopher's old 
cleverness in handling men was--now shown by his instructing Roldan to 
sally forth and bring Ojeda to order. It was a case of setting a thief to 
catch a thief and, as it turned out, was not a bad stroke. Roldan, nothing 
loth, sailed round to that part of the coast where Ojeda's ships were 
anchored, and asked to see his licence; which was duly shown to him and 
rather took the wind out of his sails. He heard a little gossip from 
Ojeda, moreover, which had its own significance for him. The Queen was 
ill; Columbus was in disgrace; there was talk of superseding him. Ojeda 
promised to sail round to San Domingo and report himself; but instead, he 
sailed to the east along the coast of Xaragua, where he got into 
communication with some discontented Spanish settlers and concocted a 
scheme for leading them to San Domingo to demand redress for their 
imagined grievances. Roldan, however, who had come to look for Ojeda, 
discovered him at this point; and there ensued some very pretty play 
between the two rascals, chiefly in trickery and treachery, such as 
capturing each other's boats and emissaries, laying traps for one another, 
and taking prisoner one another's crews. The end of it was that Ojeda left 
the island without having reported himself to Columbus, but not before he 
had completed his business--which was that of provisioning his ships and 
collecting dye-wood and slaves. 

And so exit Ojeda from the Columbian drama. Of his own drama only one more 
act remained to be played; which, for the sake of our past interest in 
him, we will mention here. Chiefly on account of his intimacy with Fonseca 
he was some years later given a governorship in the neighbourhood of the 
Gulf of Darien; Juan de la Cosa accompanying him as unofficial partner. 
Ojeda has no sooner landed there than he is fighting the natives; natives 
too many for him this time; Ojeda forced to hide in the forest, where he 
finds the body of de la Cosa, who has come by a shocking death. Ojeda 
afterwards tries to govern his colony, but is no good at that; cannot 
govern his own temper, poor fellow. Quarrels with his crew, is put in 
irons, carried to Espanola, and dies there (1515) in great poverty and 
eclipse. One of the many, evidently, who need a strong guiding hand, and 
perish without it. 

It really began to seem as though Roldan, having had his fling and secured 
the excessive privileges that he coveted, had decided that loyalty to 
Christopher was for the present the most profitable policy; but the 
mutinous spirit that he had cultivated in his followers for his own ends 
could not be so readily converted into this cheap loyalty. More trouble 
was yet to come of this rebellion. There was in the island a young Spanish 
aristocrat, Fernando de Guevara by name, one of the many who had come out 
in the hope of enjoying himself and making a fortune quickly, whose more 
than outrageously dissolute life in San Domingo had caused Columbus to 
banish him thence; and he was now living near Xaragua with a cousin of 
his, Adrian de Moxeca, who had been one of the ringleaders in Roldan's 
conspiracy. Within this pleasant province of Xaragua lived, as we have 
seen, Anacaona, the sister of Caonabo, the Lord of the House of Gold. She 
herself was a beautiful woman, called by her subjects Bloom of the Gold; 
and she had a still more beautiful daughter, Higuamota, who appears in 
history, like so many other women, on account of her charms and what came 
of them. 

Of pretty Higuamota, who once lived like a dryad among the groves of 
Espanola and has been dead now for so long, we know nothing except that 
she was beautiful, which, although she doubtless did not think so while 
she lived, turns out to have been the most important thing about her. 
Young Guevara, coming to stay with his cousin Adrian, becomes a visitor at 
the house of Anacaona; sees the pretty daughter and falls in love with 
her. Other people also, it appears, have been in a similar state, but 
Higuamota is not very accessible; a fact which of course adds to the 
interest of the chase, and turns dissolute Fernando's idle preference into 
something like a passion. Roldan, who has also had an eye upon her, and 
apparently no more than an eye, discovers that Fernando, in order to 
gratify his passion, is proposing to go the absurd length of marrying the 
young woman, and has sent for a priest for that purpose. Roldan, 
instigated thereto by primitive forces, thinks it would be impolitic for a 
Spanish grandee to marry with a heathen; very well, then, Fernando will 
have her baptized--nothing simpler when water and a priest are handy. 
Roldan, seeing that the young man is serious, becomes peremptory, and 
orders him to leave Xaragua. Fernando ostentatiously departs, but is 
discovered a little later actually living in the house of Anacaona, who 
apparently is sympathetic to Love's young dream. Once more ordered away, 
this time with anger and threats, Guevara changes his tune and implores 
Roldan to let him stay, promising that he will give up the marriage 
project and also, no doubt, the no-marriage project. But Guevara has 
sympathisers. The mutineers have not forgiven Roldan for deserting them 
and becoming a lawful instead of an unlawful ruler. They are all on the 
side of Guevara, who accordingly moves to the next stage of island 
procedure, and sets on foot some kind of plot to kill Roldan and the 
Admiral. Fortunately where there is treachery it generally works both 
ways; this plot came to the ears of the authorities; the conspirators were 
arrested and sent to San Domingo. 

This action came near to bringing the whole island about Columbus's ears. 
Adrian de Moxeca was furious at what he conceived to be the treachery of 
Roldan, for Roldan was in such a pass that the barest act of duty was 
necessarily one of treachery to his friends. Moxeca took the place of 
chief rebel that Roldan had vacated; rallied the mutineers round him, and 
was on the point of starting for Concepcion, one of the chain of forts 
across the island where Columbus was at present staying, when the Admiral 
discovered his plan. All that was strongest and bravest in him rose up at 
this menace. His weakness and cowardice were forgotten; and with the 
spirit of an old sea-lion he sallied forth against the mutineers. He had 
only a dozen men on whom he could rely, but he armed them well and marched 
secretly and swiftly under cloud of night to the place where Moxeca and 
his followers were encamped in fond security, and there suddenly fell upon 
them, capturing Moxeca and the chief ringleaders. The rest scattered in 
terror and escaped. Moxeca was hurried off to the battlements of San 
Domingo and there, in the very midst of a longdrawn trembling confession 
to the priest in attendance, was swung off the ramparts and hanged. The 
others, although also condemned to death, were kept in irons in the 
fortress, while Christopher and Bartholomew, roused at last to vigorous 
action, scoured the island hunting down the remainder, killing some who 
resisted, hanging others on the spot, and imprisoning the remainder at San 
Domingo. 

After these prompt measures peace reigned for a time in the island, and 
Columbus was perhaps surprised to see what wholesome effects could be 
produced by a little exemplary severity. The natives, who under the 
weakness of his former rule had been discontented and troublesome, now 
settled down submissively to their yoke; the Spaniards began to work in 
earnest on their farms; and there descended upon island affairs a brief 
St. Martin's Summer of peace before the final winter of blight and death 
set in. The Admiral, however, was obviously in precarious health; his 
ophthalmia became worse, and the stability of his mind suffered. He had 
dreams and visions of divine help and comfort, much needed by him, poor 
soul, in all his tribulations and adversities. Even yet the cup was not 
full. 

We must now turn back to Spain and try to form some idea of the way in 
which the doings of Columbus were being regarded there if we are to 
understand the extraordinary calamity that was soon to befall him. It must 
be remembered first of all that his enterprise had never really been 
popular from the first. It was carried out entirely by the energy and 
confidence of Queen Isabella, who almost alone of those in power believed 
in it as a thing which was certain to bring ultimate glory, as well as 
riches and dominion, to Spain and the Catholic faith. As we have seen, 
there had been a brief ebullition of popular favour when Columbus returned 
from his first voyage, but it was a popularity excited solely by the 
promises of great wealth that Columbus was continually holding forth. When 
those promises were not immediately fulfilled popular favour subsided; and 
when the adventurers who had gone out to the new islands on the strength 
of those promises had returned with shattered health and empty pockets 
there was less chance than ever of the matter being regarded in its proper 
light by the people of Spain. Columbus had either found a gold mine or he 
had found nothing--that was the way in which the matter was popularly 
regarded. Those who really understood the significance of his discoveries 
and appreciated their scientific importance did not merely stay at home in 
Spain and raise a clamour; they went out in the Admiral's footsteps and 
continued the work that he had begun. Even King Ferdinand, for all his 
cleverness, had never understood the real lines on which the colony should 
have been developed. His eyes were fixed upon Europe; he saw in the 
discoveries of Columbus a means rather than an end; and looked to them 
simply as a source of revenue with the help of which he could carry on his 
ambitious schemes. And when, as other captains made voyages confirming and 
extending the work of Columbus, he did begin to understand the 
significance of what had been done, he realised too late that the Admiral 
had been given powers far in excess of what was prudent or sensible. 

During all the time that Columbus and his brothers were struggling with 
the impossible situation at Espanola there was but one influence at work 
in Spain, and that was entirely destructive to the Admiral. Every caravel 
that came from the New World brought two things. It brought a crowd of 
discontented colonists, many of whom had grave reasons for their 
discontent; and it brought letters from the Admiral in which more and more 
promises were held out, but in which also querulous complaints against 
this and that person, and against the Spanish settlers generally, were set 
forth at wearisome length. It is not remarkable that the people of Spain, 
even those who were well disposed towards Columbus, began to wonder if 
these two things were not cause and effect. The settlers may have been a 
poor lot, but they were the material with which Columbus had to deal; he 
had powers enough, Heaven knew, powers of life and death; and the problem 
began to resolve itself in the minds of those at the head of affairs in 
Spain in the following terms. Given an island, rich and luxuriant beyond 
the dreams of man; given a native population easily subdued; given 
settlers of one kind or another; and given a Viceroy with unlimited 
powers--could he or could he not govern the island? It was a by no means 
unfair way of putting the case, and there is little justice in the wild 
abuse that has been hurled at Ferdinand and Isabella on this ground. 
Columbus may have been the greatest genius in the world; very possibly 
they admitted it; but in the meanwhile Spain was resounding with the cries 
of the impoverished colonists who had returned from his ocean Paradise. No 
doubt the Sovereigns ignored them as much as they possibly could; but when 
it came to ragged emaciated beggars coming in batches of fifty at a time 
and sitting in the very courts of the Alhambra, exhibiting bunches of 
grapes and saying that that was all they could afford to live upon since 
they had come back from the New World, some notice had to be taken of it. 
Even young Diego and Ferdinand, the Admiral's sons, came in for the 
obloquy with which his name was associated; the colonial vagabonds hung 
round the portals of the palace and cried out upon them as they passed so 
that they began to dislike going out. Columbus, as we know, had plenty of 
enemies who had access to the King and Queen; and never had enemies an 
easier case to urge. Money was continually being spent on ships and 
supplies; where was the return for it? What about the Ophir of Solomon? 
What about the Land of Spices? What about the pearls? And if you want to 
add a touch of absurdity, what about the Garden of Eden and the Great 
Khan? 

To the most impartial eyes it began to appear as though Columbus were 
either an impostor or a fool. There is no evidence that Ferdinand and 
Isabella thought that he was an impostor or that he had wilfully deceived 
them; but there is some evidence that they began to have an inkling as to 
what kind of a man he really was, and as to his unfitness for governing a 
colony. Once more something had to be done. The sending out of a 
commissioner had not been a great success before, but in the difficulties 
of the situation it seemed the only thing. Still there was a good deal of 
hesitation, and it is probable that Isabella was not yet fully convinced 
of the necessity for this grave step. This hesitation was brought to an 
end by the arrival from Espanola of the ships bearing the followers of 
Roldan, who had been sent back under the terms of Columbus's feeble 
capitulation. The same ships brought a great quantity of slaves, which the 
colonists were able to show had been brought by the permission of the 
Admiral; they carried native girls also, many of them pregnant, many with 
new-born babies; and these also came with the permission of the Admiral. 
The ships further carried the Admira'l's letter complaining of the 
conspiracy of Roldan and containing the unfortunate request for a further 
licence to extend the slave trade. These circumstances were probably 
enough to turn the scale of Isabella's opinion against the Admiral's 
administration. The presence of the slaves particularly angered her kind 
womanly heart. "What right has he to give away my vassals?" she exclaimed, 
and ordered that they should all be sent back, and that in addition all 
the other slaves who had come home should be traced and sent back; 
although of course it was impossible to carry out this last order. 

At any rate there was no longer any hesitation about sending out a 
commissioner, and the Sovereigns chose one Francisco de Bobadilla, an 
official of the royal household, for the performance of this difficult 
mission. As far as we can decipher him he was a very ordinary official 
personage; prejudiced, it is possible, against an administration that had 
produced such disastrous results and which offended his orderly official 
susceptibilities; otherwise to be regarded as a man exactly honest in the 
performance of what he conceived to be his duties, and entirely indisposed 
to allow sentiment or any other extraneous matter to interfere with such 
due performance. We shall have need to remember, when we see him at work 
in Espanola, that he was not sent out to judge between Columbus and his 
Sovereigns or between Columbus and the world, but to investigate the 
condition of the colony and to take what action he thought necessary. The 
commission which he bore to the Admiral was in the following terms: 

"The King and the Queen: Don Christopher Columbus, our Admiral of the 
Ocean-sea. We have directed Francisco de Bobadilla, the bearer of this, to 
speak to you for us of certain things which he will mention: we request 
you to give him faith and credence and to obey him. From Madrid, May 26, 
'99. I THE KING. I THE QUEEN. By their command. Miguel Perez de Almazan." 

In addition Bobadilla bore with him papers and authorities giving him 
complete control and possession of all the forts, arms, and royal property 
in the island, in case it should be necessary for him to use them; and he 
also had a number of blank warrants which were signed, but the substance 
of which was not filled in. This may seem very dreadful to us, with our 
friendship for the poor Admiral; but considering the grave state of 
affairs as represented to the King and Queen, who had their duties to 
their colonial subjects as well as to Columbus, there was nothing 
excessive in it. If they were to send out a commissioner at all, and if 
they were satisfied, as presumably they were, that the man they had chosen 
was trustworthy, it was only right to make his authority absolute. Thus 
equipped Francisco de Bobadilla sailed from Spain in July 1500.