He Thereupon Made All The Haste He
Could To Overtake The Admiral In Spain; But On His Arrival At Seville, He
Found That The Admiral Had Gone Out Upon His Second Voyage With Seventeen
Sail, As Already Related.
Wherefore, to fulfil the orders which his
brother had left for him at the beginning of 1494, he went
To the court of
their Catholic majesties at Valadolid, carrying my brother Don James
Columbus and me along with him, as we had been appointed to serve as pages
to Prince John. Immediately upon our arrival, their majesties sent for Don
Bartholomew, and dispatched him with three ships to Hispaniola, where he
served several years, as appears from the following memorandum which I
found among his papers: "I served as captain from the 14th April 1494,
till the 12th of March 1498, when the admiral set out for Spain, and then
I began to act as governor till the 24th of August 1498, when the admiral
returned from the discovery of Paria; after which, I again served as
captain till the 11th of December 1500, when I returned to Spain." On his
return from Cuba, the admiral appointed his brother governor of the
Indies; though controversies afterwards arose on this subject, as their
majesties alleged that they had not given authority to the admiral to
make any such appointment. But to end this difference, their highnesses
granted it a-new, under the title of adelantado, or lieutenant of the
Indies, to my uncle Don Bartholomew.
Having now the assistance and advice of his brother, the admiral took some
rest, and lived in quiet, although he met with sufficient troubles, both
on account of his sickness, and because he found that almost all the
Indians had revolted through the fault of Don Pedro Marguerite. He, though
obliged to respect and honour the admiral, who had left him the command of
360 foot and 14 horse, with orders to travel all over the island, and to
reduce it to the obedience of their Catholic Majesties and the Christians,
particularly the province of Cibao, whence the chief profit was expected;
yet acted in every thing contrary to his orders and instructions, insomuch,
that when the admiral was gone, he went with all his men to the great
plain called Vega Real, or the Royal Plain, ten leagues from Isabella,
where he remained without ever endeavouring to traverse and reduce the
island. Hence there ensued discords and factions at Isabella, as Don Pedro
endeavoured to make the council which the admiral had instituted in that
place, subservient to his own authority, sending them very insolent
letters; and perceiving that he could not succeed in getting the whole
power and authority into his hands, he was afraid to wait the return of
the admiral who would have called him to a severe account for his conduct,
and went therefore on board the first ships that returned to Spain,
without giving any account of himself or any way disposing of the men who
had been left under his command.
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