Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/655

 Isabella, and received Aguado with the most grave and punctilious courtesy, assuring him of his readiness to acquiesce in whatever might be the pleasure of his sovereigns; but resolving in his own mind to return as soon as practicable to Spain, and to ascertain for himself the reason why this commission of inquiry had been appointed.

Columbus was, however, detained longer than he wished. When his arrangements were made for returning, a violent hurricane destroyed not merely the four caravels Aguado had brought out with him, but all his own vessels, except the Nina, and she was left to him in a very shattered condition. But she was soon repaired, and from the wreck of the others he built a second vessel, which he named the Santa Cruz, and set sail for Cadiz on the 10th of March, 1496, he embarking in one of the vessels, and Aguado in the other, leaving his brother Bartholomew in command of Hispaniola. Both caravels were loaded with two hundred and fifty of the most discontented and profligate of the colonists, as also with the sick and others who desired to return to Spain. The voyage proved extremely tedious and toilsome, and it was not until the 11th of June that they anchored in the Bay of Cadiz.

The enemies of Columbus had been only too successful in undermining his popularity. The first excitement of a newly discovered world had died away. Western India had not yielded the gold and spices and wealth anticipated; and the means it really afforded for producing far greater wealth than the