VILLE DE ST. DOMINGUE.
SANTO DOMINGO. 1754.
Growth of the royal dissatisfaction with Columbus.
The arrangements for sending him had been made slowly. They were even outlined when Ojeda had started on his voyage, for he had, in his interviews with Roldan, blindly indicated that some astonishment of this sort was in store. Evidently Fonseca had not allowed Ojeda to depart without some intimations.
Charges against Columbus.
Notwithstanding Columbus professed to believe that nothing but the lack of pecuniary return for the great outlays of his expeditions could be alleged against them, he was well aware, and he had constantly acted as if well aware, of the great array of accusations which had been made against him in Spain, with a principal purpose of undermining the indulgent regard of the Queen for him. He had known it with sorrow during his last visit to Spain, and had found, as we have seen, that he could not secure men to accompany him and put themselves under his control unless he unshackled criminals in the jails. He little thought that such utter disregard of the morals and self-respect of those whom he had settled in the New World would, by a sort of retributive justice, open the way, however unjustly, to put the displaced gyves on himself, amid the exultant feelings of these same criminals. Such reiterated criminations were like the water-drops that wear the stone, and he had, as we have noted, felt the certainty of direful results.
His exaggerations of the wealth of the Indies.
Columbus deceives the Crown.