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Rh about this time have determined to suspend him. Accord ingly on March 21, 1499, Francisco de Bobadilla was ordered &quot; to ascertain what persons had raised themselves against justice in the island of Hispaniola, and to proceed against them according to law.&quot; On May 21st the govern ment of the island was conferred on him, and he was accredited with an order that ail arms and fortresses should &quot;be handed over to him ; and on May 26 he received a letter for delivery to Columbus, stating that the bearer would &quot;speak certain things to him&quot; on the part of their high nesses, and praying him &quot; to give faith and credence, and to act accordingly.&quot; Bobadilla left Spain in July 1500, and landed in Hispaniola in October. Columbus, meanwhile, had restored such tranquillity as was possible in his government. With Roldan s help he had beaten off an attempt on the island of the adventurer Ojeda, his old lieutenant ; the Indians were being collected into villages and Christianized. Gold-mining was actively nnd profitably pursued ; in three years, he calculated, the royal revenues might be raised to an average of 60,000,000 reals. The arrival of Bobadilla, however, speedily changed this state of affairs into a greater and more pitiable con fusion than the island had ever before witnessed. On landing, he took possession of the Admiral s house and summoned him and his brothers before him. Accusations of severity, of injustice, of venality even, were poured down on thsir heads, and Columbus anticipated nothing less than a shameful death. Bobadilla put all three in irons, and shipped them off to Spain. Alonso de Villejo, captain of the caravel in which the illustrious prisoners sailed, still retained a proper sense of the honour and respecb due to Columbus, and would have removed the fetters ; but to this Columbus would not consent. He would wear them, he said, until their high nesses, by whose order they had been affixed, should order their removal; and he would keep them, afterwards &quot;as relics and as memorials of the reward of his services.&quot; He did so. His son Fernando &quot; saw them always hanging in his cabinet, and he requested that when he died they might be buried with him.&quot; Whether this last wish was complied with is not known. A heart-broken and indignant letter from Columbus to Dona Juana de la Torre, the governess of the infante Don Juan, arrived at court before the despatch of Bobadilla. It was read to the queen, and its tidings were confirmed by communications from Alonso de Villejo, and the alcaide of Cadiz. There was a great movement of indignation ; the tide of popular and royal feeling turned once more in the Admiral s favour. He received a large sum to defray his expenses ; and when he appeared at court, on 1 7th Decem ber, he was no longer in irons and disgrace, but richly apparelled and surrounded with friends. He was received with all honour and distinction. The queen is said to have been moved to tears by the narration of his story. Their majesties not only repudiated Bobadilla s proceedings, but declined to inquire into the charges that he at the same time brought, against his prisoners, and promised Columbus compensation for his losses and satisfaction for his wrongs. A new governor, Nicolas de Ovando, was ap pointed in Bobadilla s room, and left San Lucar on 18th February 1502, with a fleet of 30 ships. The latter was to be impeached and sent home ; the Admiral s property was to be restored, and a fresh start was to be made in the conduct of colonial affairs. Thus ended Columbia s history as viceroy and governor of the new Indies which he had presented to the country of his adoption.

His hour of rest, however, was not yet come. Ever anxious to serve their Catholic highnesses, &quot;and particularly the queen,&quot; he had determined to find a strait through which he might penetrate westwards into Portu guese Asia. After the usual inevitable delays his prayers were granted, and on 9th May 1502, with four caravels and 150 men, he weighed anchor from Cadiz, and sailed on his fourth and last great voyage. He first betook himself to the relief of the Portuguese fort of Arzilla, which had been besieged by the Moors, but tho siege had been raised volun tarily before he arrived. He put to sea westwards once more, and on 13th June discovered the island of Martinique. He had received positive instructions from his sovereigns on no account to touch at Hispaniola; but his largest caravel was greatly in need of repairs, and he had no choice but to abandon her or disobey orders. He preferred the latter alternative, and sent a boat ashore to Ovando, asking for a new ship and for permission to enter the harbour to weather a hurricane which he saw was coming on. But his requests were refused, and he coasted the island, cast ing anchor under lee of the land. Here he weathered tho storm, which drove the other caravels out to sea, and anni hilated the homeward-bound fleet, the richest that had till then been sent from Hispaniola. Iloldanand Bobadilla perished with others of the Admiral s enemies ; and Fer nando Colon, who accompanied his father on this voyage, wrote long years afterwards, &quot; I am satisfied it was the hand of God, for had they arrived in Spain they had never been punished as their crimes deserved, but rather been favoured and preferred.&quot; After recruiting his flotilla at Azua, Columbus puL in at Jaquimo and refitted his four vessels ; and on 14th July 1502 he steered for Jamaica. For nine weeks the ships wandered painfully among the ksys and shoals he had named the Garden -of the Queen, and only an opportune easterly wind prevented the crews from open mutiny. The first land sighted was the islet of Guanaja, about forty miles east of the coast of Honduras. Here he got news from an old Indian of a rich and vast country lying to the eastward, which he at once concluded must be the long sought for empire of the Grand Khan. Steering along the coast of Honduras, great hardships were endured, but nothing approaching his ideal was discovered. On 12th September Cape Gracias-a-Dios was sighted. The men had become clamorous and insubordinate ; not until the 5th December, however, would he tack about, and retrace his course. It now became his intention to plant a colony on the river Veragua, which was afterwards to give his descendants a title of nobility; but he had hardly put about when he was caught in a storm, which lasted eight days, wrenched and strained his crazy, worm-eaten ships severely, and finally, on tha Epiphany, blew him into an embouchure which he named Bethlehem. Gold was very plentiful in this place, and here he determined to found his settlement. By the end of March 1503 a num ber of huts had been run up, and in these the adelautarto with 80 men was to remain, while Columbus returned to Spain for men and supplies. Quarrels, however, arose with the natives ; the adelantado made an attempt to seize on the person of the cacique, and failed ; and before Columbus could leave ths coast he had to abandon a caravel, to take the settlers on board, and to relinquish tho entarprize. Steering eastwards, he left a second caravel at Porto Bello ; and on May 31st he bore northwards for Cuba, where he obtained supplies from the natives. From Cuba he bore up for Jamaica, and there, in the harbour of Santa Gloria, now St Anne s Bay, he ran his ships aground in a small inlet still called Don Christopher s Cove. The expedition was received with the greatest kindness by the natives, and here Columbus remained upwards of a year awaiting the return of his lieutenant Diego Mendez, whom he had dispatched to Ovando for assistance. Dur ing his critical sojourn here, the admiral suffered much from disease and from the lawlessness of his followers, 