A considerable time, however, elapsed before any steps were taken to fit out another expedition in which Columbus could return to Dominica and there resume in triumph the viceroyalty of the colony. Many events prevented the immediate despatch of another fleet, some of which were in a measure beyond the control of the sovereigns of Spain. The delay was, however, a grievous disappointment to Columbus. Though Bobadilla, by whom he had been superseded and insulted, was dismissed, Ferdinand, whose professions of friendship were far from being as sincere as those of the queen, deemed it desirable to refill his place for two years by some prudent and able officer, who could put a stop to all remaining faction in the colony, and thus prepare the way for Columbus to enjoy the rights and dignities of his government, both peacefully and beneficially to the crown. But there were other reasons which induced Ferdinand to appoint one Nicholas de Ovando as governor, for a time, to the new found colony. Listening too readily to the calumnies of the many enemies at court of Columbus, he had imbibed some vague idea that the great navigator might set up an independent sovereignty, or deliver his discoveries into the hands of the Genoese, or of some other European power: he may also have felt that Columbus was no longer indispensable to him, as the throne was daily besieged by applicants to be allowed to fit out expeditions at their own expense, and to share with the crown the profits upon them.
A fleet sails for the colony with Ovando, Feb. 1502, and two months afterwards (9th May) Columbus follows, and reaches Dominica, 29th June.
Hence it was that the interests of Columbus were for a time overlooked. Ovando, however, received orders to examine all his accounts; to ascertain the damages he had sustained by his imprisonment, by the interruption of his privileges, and by the confiscation of his effects. His property, which Bobadilla had seized, was to be restored, and to be made good if it had been sold. Equal care was also to be taken to indemnify his brothers for their arrest and for the losses they had sustained. The arrears of the revenue due to Columbus were to be paid to him, and their punctual payment secured for the future. Such were among the instructions given to Ovando, who, on the 13th of February, 1502, sailed in the largest fleet which had previously left for the new colony.
Washington Irving, quoting from Las Casas, who, however, he states, gives the figures from memory,[766] says “that this fleet consisted of thirty sail, five of them from ninety to one hundred and fifty tons burden; twenty-four caravels, from thirty to ninety, and one bark of twenty-five tons. The number of souls,” he continues, “embarked in this fleet, was about twenty-five hundred, many of them persons of rank and distinction, with their families.” But as the smaller craft were not adapted for a voyage across the Atlantic, and as the number of persons embarked would give eighty-three, on an average, to each vessel, which is a greater number than even the largest vessels could conveniently carry with their luggage, and the requisite stores of provisions and water for such a voyage, there is no doubt some error in the figures of Las Casas. It is more likely, especially as the vessels conveyed many persons of rank and distinction, that the smallest was one hundred, and the largest somewhere about three hundred tons burthen. This fleet, it would appear, did not arrive at Dominica until the 15th of April; and in a violent storm, which it encountered soon after leaving Spain, lost, according to the same authority, one of its number, with “one hundred and twenty persons” on board.
Discovers the island of Guanaga, 30th July.
Trading canoe.
Age and care were rapidly reducing the otherwise strong frame of Columbus, when, on the 9th of May, 1502, he set sail from Cadiz in four small caravels on his fourth and last voyage of discovery. He was then about sixty-six years of age; but from the hardships he had encountered, and the mental sufferings he had undergone, his constitution was so much impaired, that he was more infirm than many men who were ten years his senior. In his brother, Don Bartholomew, and in his younger son, Fernando, he however found wise counsellors and able assistants, combined with sincere and affectionate sympathisers. Arriving at the Grand Canary, on the 20th of May, he took in a fresh supply of wood and water, and five days afterwards sailed for the Caribbee Islands, which he reached without shifting sail on the 15th of June, having had a fair wind and beautiful weather the whole way. On the 29th of that month he arrived at Dominica, where matters were still in so unsettled a state that he did not land, but proceeded to Port Hermoso, to the west of that island, to effect some necessary repairs to his vessels. Thence he sailed on his voyage of research, calling at Port Brazil for shelter from a gale, and leaving that port on the 14th of July, discovering, sixteen days afterwards, a small island within a few leagues of the coast of Honduras, still known by the Indian name of Guanaga or Bonacca. Here Columbus was struck with the contents of a large trading canoe which lay in the harbour, supposed to have come from the province of Yucatan, about forty leagues distant. This canoe, “eight feet wide, and as long as a galley, formed from the trunk of a single tree,” was filled with multifarious articles, the manufacture and natural production of the adjacent countries. She was rowed by twenty-five Indians; and under an awning, or cabin of palm leaves, in form resembling that of the gondolas of Venice, sat a cacique, with his wives and children, who, displaying no fear whatever of the Spaniards, seemed to indicate that their ancestors had held intercourse with the people of civilized nations; while the articles of commerce which the canoe contained tended to confirm this impression. Washington Irving adds, that, besides various Indian products Columbus had met with before, this canoe had also in her, hatchets of copper, wooden swords with sharp flints inserted, and made fast by lines of fish intestines, several copper bells and a rude kind of crucible—with various utensils in clay, marble, and hard wood. It also contained quantities of cacao, a substance not then known to the Spaniards, and which the Indians used both for food and as a species of currency. The Indians made use of a beverage resembling beer, and made from maize; and their women wore mantles, like those of the Moorish women at Granada. From some intelligent natives who were on board this vessel Columbus learned that they came from a rich and luxuriant country in the West, towards which they strongly advised the admiral to steer; and had he acted on this advice, he must have reached Yucatan in a day or two, and added to his previous discoveries that also of Mexico.
Prosecutes his researches to the South.
Reaches Cape Honduras.
The discovery of the other opulent countries of New Spain would have necessarily followed; while the disclosure of the Southern Ocean would have revealed to him the true form of that interesting portion of the world, and, affording a succession of splendid discoveries, would have shed fresh renown on his declining years. But Columbus was intent on discovering the imaginary strait which would lead him to the land of Cathay, and the spice islands of India, which Marco Polo had so glowingly described.[767] Consequently on leaving the island of Guanaga, he stood southerly till he discovered the land now known as Cape Honduras, where he again encountered heavy storms, by which his vessel suffered much damage. “I have seen many storms,” said Columbus, “but none so violent or of such long duration.” Against these he struggled for forty days, having advanced in that time only about seventy leagues, to another headland, to which he gave the name of Gracias a Dios (Thanks to God): here the coast turned directly south, and he obtained for his further course a fair wind for his leaky and tempest-tost caravels.