The Admiral Therefore Went To The Ships Side To Hear What They Had To Say, And Then Two Men From The Canoe Went Up With Two Marks Of Gold, Which They Presented With Many Compliments To The Admiral As From The Cacique Guacanagari.

Being asked concerning the Christians who were left at the Nativity, they answered that some of them had died of distempers, some had parted from the company and had gone into other parts of the country, and that all of them had four or five wives.

Though it appeared from the way in which these Indians spoke, that all or most of the colonists were dead, yet the admiral did not think fit to take much notice of the circumtance at the time; he therefore dismissed the messengers with some brass trinkets and other baubles for Guacanagari, and a few to themselves.

Towards evening on Thursday the twenty-eighth November the admiral came with all the fleet into the harbour of the Nativity, and found the whole town burnt, and no person whatever could be seen about the place. Next morning the admiral landed, and was much concerned to find the fort and houses entirely destroyed, and nothing left which had belonged to the Christians, except some tattered garments and other broken articles of no value. Finding no person at whom he could make inquiries, he went up a river in the neighbourhood with several boats, leaving orders to clean out the well which he had dug in the fort, as he had directed the colonists to throw all the gold they could get into that well, to be prepared against the worst that might happen; but nothing of the kind could be found.

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