CHAPTER XXXIV. Columbus arrested and sent to Spain. WHEN Columbus received tidings at Fort Conception of the high-handed proceedings of Bobadilla, he considered them the unauthorized act of some rash adventurer; but the proclamation of his letters patent, which immediately took place throughout the island, soon convinced him he was acting under authority. He endeavoured then to persuade himself that Bobadilla was sent out to exercise the functions of chief judge, in compliance with the request contained in one of his own letters to the sovereigns, and that he was perhaps intrusted with provisional powers to inquire into the late troubles of the island. All beyond these powers he tried to believe were mere assumptions, and exaggerations of authority, as in the case of Aguado. His consciousness of his own services and integrity, and his faith in the justice of the sovereigns, forbade him to think otherwise. He proceeded to act on this idea; writing temperate and conciliatory letters to Bobadilla, wherein he cautioned him against his precipitate measures; while he endeavoured by counter proclamations to prevent the mischief he was producing. Messengers soon arrived, however, who delivered to him a royal letter of credence, commanding him to give implicit faith and obedience to Bobadilla, and they gave him, at the same time, a summons from the latter to appear before him immediately at San Domingo. This laconic letter from the sovereigns struck at once at the root of his dignity and power; he made no longer any hesitation or demur, but departed alone and almost unattended, to obey the peremptory summons of Bobadilla. The latter, in the mean time, had made a bustle of preparation, and mustered the troops, affecting to believe a vulgar rumour, that Columbus had called on the caciques of the vega, to aid him in resisting the commands of government. He moreover arrested Don Diego, threw him in irons, and confined him on board of a caraval, without assigning any cause for his imprisonment. No sooner did he hear of the arrival of Columbus, than he gave orders to put him also in irons, and to confine him in the fortress. This outrage to a person of such dignified and venerable appearance, and such eminent merit, seemed for a time to shock even his enemies. When the irons were brought, every one present shrunk from the task of putting them on him, either out of a sentiment of compassion at so great a reverse of fortune, or out of habitual reverence for his person. To fill the measure of ingratitude meted out to him, it was one of his own servants that volunteered to rivet his fetters. Columbus conducted himself with characteristic magnanimity under the injuries heaped upon him. There is a noble scorn which swells and supports the heart, and silences the tongue of the truly great, when enduring the insults of the unworthy. Co lumbus could not stoop to deprecate the arrogance of a weak and violent man like Bobadilla. He looked beyond this shallow agent, and all his petty tyranny, to the sovereigns who had employed him. It was their injustice and ingratitude alone that could wound his spirit; and he felt assured that when the truth came to be known, they would blush to find how greatly they had wronged him. With this proud assurance, he bore all present indignities in silence. He even wrote, at the demand of Bobadilla, a letter to the Adelantado, who was still in Xaragua, at the head of an armed force, exhorting him to submit quietly to the will of the sovereigns. Don Bartholomew immediately complied. Relinquishing his command, he hastened peacefully to San Domingo, and on arriving experienced the same treatment with his brothers, being put in irons, and confined on board of a caraval. They were kept separate from each other, and no communication permitted between them. Bobadilla did not see them himself, nor did he allow others to visit them; and they were kept in total ignorance of the crimes with which they were charged, and the proceedings that were instituted against them. The old scenes of the time of Aguado were now renewed, with tenfold virulence. All the old charges were revived, and others added, still more extravagant in their nature. Columbus was accused of having prevented the conversion of the Indians, that they might be sold as slaves; with having secreted the pearls collected on the coast of Paria, and kept the sovereigns in ignorance of the nature of his discoveries there, in order to exact new pri vileges from them. Even the late tumults were turned into matters of accusation, and the rebels admitted as evidence. The well-merited punishments inflicted upon certain of the ringleaders were cited as proofs of a cruel and revengeful disposition, and a secret hatred of Spaniards. Guevara, Reguelme, and their fellow convicts, were discharged almost without the form of a trial. Roldan, from the very first, had been treated with confidence by Bobadilla; all the others, whose conduct had rendered them liable to justice, received either a special acquittal or a general pardon. Bobadilla had now collected testimony sufficient, as he thought, to ensure the condemnation of the prisoners, and his own continuance in command. He determined, therefore, to send home the admiral and his brothers in chains, in the vessels which were ready for sea, with the inquest taken in their case, and private letters enforcing the charges made against them. The San Domingo now swarmed with miscreants, just delivered from the dungeon and the gibbet. Every base spirit which had been overawed by Columbus and his brothers when in power now hastened to revenge itself upon them when in chains. most injurious slanders were loudly proclaimed in the streets, pasquinades and libels were posted up at the corners, and horns blown in the neighbourhood of their prisons, to taunt them with the exultings of the rabble. The charge of conducting the prisoners to Spain was given to Alonzo de Villejo, an officer who was in the employ of Bishop Fonseca. He was instructed, on arriving at Cadiz, to deliver his prisoners into the hands of the bishop, which circumstance has caused a belief that Fonseca was the secret instigator of all these violent proceedings. Villejo, however, was a man of honourable character, and generous feelings, and showed himself superior to the low malignity of his patrons. When he arrived with a guard to conduct the admiral from the prison to the ship, he found him in chains in a state of deep despondency. So violently had the latter been treated, and so savage were the passions let loose against him, that he had began to fear he should be sacrificed without an opportunity of being heard, and that his name would go down to posterity sullied with imputed crimes. When the officer entered with the guard, he thought it was to conduct him to the scaffold. Villejo," said he mournfully, "whither are you taking me?" "To the ship, your excellency, to embark," replied the other. "To embark!" repeated the admiral earnestly. "Villejo, do you speak the truth?" " By the life of your excellency," replied the honest officer, "it is true!" With these words the admiral was comforted, and felt as one restored from death to life. 66 The caravals set sail early in October, bearing off Columbus shackled like the vilest of culprits, amidst the scoffs and shouts of a miscreant rabble, who took a brutal joy in heaping insults on his venerable head, and sent curses after him from the island he had so recently added to the civilized world. Fortunately the voyage was favourable and of moderate duration, and was rendered less irksome to Columbus, by the conduct of those to whom he was given in custody. The worthy Villejo, as well as Andreas Martin, the master of the caraval, felt deeply grieved |