Ojeda Had Now Only A Small Skiff
Left, In Which He Ventured On Shore To Treat Peaceably With Roldan.
After
apologizing for his offences, he offered to restore some men whom he had
made prisoners, providing his boat and people were restored; and
represented that the detention of the boat would be the ruin of his ships,
as they had now no other fit for service.
Roldan readily granted this
request, that there might be no reason to complain or to allege that the
expedition of Ojeda had suffered prejudice or danger through his means;
but he made him engage and give security for the performance of his
promise, that he should depart from the island by an appointed time; which
Roldan took care to ensure by keeping a strong guard on shore.
As it is a hard matter to root out cockle so that it may not sprout again,
so it is no less difficult for people who have once been habituated to
evil to forbear relapsing into their crimes. Only a few days after the
departure of Ojeda, one D. Ferdinand de Guevara, who was in disgrace with
the admiral as a seditious person, and who had taken part with Ojeda from
hatred to Roldan, because he would not permit him to take to wife the
daughter of Canua the principal queen of Xaragua, began to gather many
conspirators to secure Roldan, that he might succeed him as leader of the
mutineers. In particular, he drew over to his party one Adrian de Moxica,
a chief man in the late rebellion; and about the middle of May 1499, a
plot was laid for securing or murdering Roldan.
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