Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/665

 Nicholas de Ovando as governor, for a time, to the new found colony. Listening too readily to the calumnies of the many enemies at court of Columbus, he had imbibed some vague idea that the great navigator might set up an independent sovereignty, or deliver his discoveries into the hands of the Genoese, or of some other European power: he may also have felt that Columbus was no longer indispensable to him, as the throne was daily besieged by applicants to be allowed to fit out expeditions at their own expense, and to share with the crown the profits upon them.

Hence it was that the interests of Columbus were for a time overlooked. Ovando, however, received orders to examine all his accounts; to ascertain the damages he had sustained by his imprisonment, by the interruption of his privileges, and by the confiscation of his effects. His property, which Bobadilla had seized, was to be restored, and to be made good if it had been sold. Equal care was also to be taken to indemnify his brothers for their arrest and for the losses they had sustained. The arrears of the revenue due to Columbus were to be paid to him, and their punctual payment secured for the future. Such were among the instructions given to Ovando, who, on the 13th of February, 1502, sailed in the largest fleet which had previously left for the new colony.

Washington Irving, quoting from Las Casas, who, however, he states, gives the figures from memory, says "that this fleet consisted of thirty sail, five of them from ninety to one hundred and fifty tons burden; twenty-four caravels, from thirty to ninety, and one