Ferdinand and Isabella weighed the gold brought by Don Diego, and decided to believe him. They thereupon cancelled Carillo’s appointment, and appointed in his place Juan Aguado, a personal friend of Columbus, who, it was understood, would go to Hispaniola in the character of a visiting statesman, and, after examining such witnesses as Columbus might introduce to him, would return home and make a report that would completely satisfy the Admiral.
In spite of this apparently friendly action, they gave Columbus just cause of complaint by throwing open the business of exploration, the monopoly of which they had formally given to him. They authorized any Spaniard to fit out exploring expeditions, under certain restrictions, and to discover continents, islands, and seas, without any limitation as to number; the discoverers to pay the Crown one third of all the gold they might find. Columbus was greatly grieved at this, not only because he feared that injudicious explorers would discover unhealthy islands, and would thus bring exploration into disrepute, but because it was a distinct breach of faith on the part of the King and Queen. As for the gracious permission which they gave him to freight a vessel to trade with the New World whenever any other explorer should freight one for the like purpose, he evidently did not trust himself to express his opinion of such a hollow mockery of his rights.
In August, 1495, Don Juan Aguado sailed for Hispaniola with a fleet loaded with supplies and a pocket filled with a royal decree, written on the best of parchment and ordering that the colony of Isabella should consist of not over five hundred people. The astute monarchs had perceived that the larger the colony might be the more numerous and contradictory would be the complaints which the colonists would make, and hence they resolved to limit the complaint-producing capacity of the colony, and to render it impossible for more than five hundred distinct accounts of the infamy of Columbus and the climate to be brought to their royal ears.
As Aguado was supposed to be a firm friend of the Admiral, Don Diego Columbus decided to return with him to Isabella, which he accordingly did, arriving some time in October. We can imagine how glad Columbus must have been to find that his good though tedious brother’s affection forbade him to desert his own dear Christopher. The latter was in the interior when Aguado arrived, and that officer immediately proceeded to astonish Don Bartholomew by putting on what Bartholomew rightly characterized as airs. Aguado announced that he had come to put things to rights, and that the colonists now had a real friend to whom they could complain when insulted and oppressed by domineering Italians. As Isabella was undoubtedly a dull place, the colonists eagerly availed themselves of the new occupation of making complaints against Columbus and his brother, and displayed a promptness and industry of which they had never before given any signs. Don Bartholomew instantly sent word to his brother that a new and alarming kind of lunatic had arrived from Spain, with a royal commission authorizing him to raise the great adversary of mankind, and that the sooner the Admiral returned the better.
Columbus hastened to Isabella, where he greeted Aguado with such overwhelming politeness that the fellow became wretchedly unhappy. He had hoped to be able to report that Columbus had insulted him and treated the royal commission with contempt, but he was disappointed. He was a little cheered up, however, by a tremendous hurricane which wrecked all the Spanish ships except one, and kept the air for a time full of Spanish colonists, natives, and fragments of ruined buildings. This he thought would read very well in his intended report on the general infamy of the climate, and, despairing of obtaining anything better, he resolved to return to Spain as soon as a new vessel could be built. The Admiral announced that he intended to return with him, a piece of news that greatly discontented Aguado, who foresaw that after he had made his report concerning Columbus the latter would be entirely capable of making a report concerning Aguado.
[Æt. 60; 1496]
About this time a young Spaniard arrived from the interior with a most welcome story. He had run away from Isabella on account of having nearly killed a fellow-colonist, and had met a beautiful female cacique living on the river Ozema, near the present site of San Domingo, who had fallen violently in love with him. From her he had learned of rich gold-mines, and he humbly trusted that Columbus would condescend to look at them and to overlook his little indiscretion in the matter of his fellow-colonist. The Admiral, secretly feeling that any man who killed one of his colonists was a benefactor of the human race, kindly forgave him and went with him to inspect the mines, which he found to be apparently so rich that he instantly overhauled his Old Testament and his Geography, and decided that he had found the original land of Ophir.
A new scientific person, who had been sent out to supersede the worthless Fermin Cedo, was ordered to take his crucibles, transit instruments, and other apparatus, and make a satisfactory assay of the mines. He did so, and, being a clever man, reported to the Admiral that the gold was unusually genuine, and that the ore would probably average three hundred dollars to the ton. At least, that is what he would have reported had he been a modern expert investigating mining property in behalf of British capitalists, and we need not suppose that there were no able assayers prior to the discovery of silver in Colorado. Columbus read the report, expressed a high opinion of the scientific abilities of the assayer, and ordered a fort to be built in the neighborhood of the mines.
Carrying with him specimens of gold from the new mines, and the report of the scientific person, Columbus sailed for Spain, in company with Aguado, on the 10th of March, 1496. He left Don Bartholomew as Governor during his absence, and took with him the captive chief Caonabo, either as a specimen of the kind of heathen produced by the island, or because he thought it might be possible to convert the chief with the help of the many appliances in the possession of the church at home. He wisely refrained from taking any slaves, Don Diego having informed him that the Queen had ordered his previous consignment of five hundred to be sent back to Hispaniola and set at liberty.
The homeward-bound fleet consisted of only two vessels, but they met with as much head-wind as if they had been a dozen ships of the largest size, and on the 10th of April they were compelled to stop at Guadaloupe for water and provisions. Here they were attacked by armed women as well as men. Several of these early American advocates of the equality of the sexes were captured, and set at liberty again when the ships sailed. One of them, however, improved the time by falling in love with Caonabo, whom she insisted upon accompanying, and Columbus consented to carry her to Spain as a beautiful illustration of the affectionate character of the Western heathen.