More impatient of the delay caused by the rejoicings in his success than he had been of the impediments thrown in his way when he had been unable to obtain a hearing for his embryo scheme, Columbus lost no time in urging on the sovereigns the fitting out of a new expedition, and, six short months after his return home, we find him leaving Cadiz with seventeen ships and 1,500 men. This second voyage resulted in the discovery of the Caribbee Islands and Jamaica.
But in the midst of his work among the West Indian Islands, the Admiral was recalled home to answer terrible charges—of untruthfulness in his descriptions of the countries discovered, and of cruelty to the natives and colonists under his charge—brought against him by his enemies. Although he succeeded in clearing himself for a time, to the satisfaction of Ferdinand and Isabella, from the odious suspicions which had been cast upon him, the rest of his life was one long struggle with persecution and adversity. From his third voyage, in which he discovered Trinidad, and landed at Paria, on the coast of South America, he was sent home in chains. We only linger a moment by the manacled hero to quote once more from Tennyson’s “Columbus.”
“... You know
The flies at home that ever swarm about,
And cloud the highest heads, and murmur down
Truth in the distance—these outbuzzed me so,
That even our prudent king, our righteous queen—
I prayed them, being so calumniated,
They would commission one of weight and worth
To judge between my slandered self and me—