Authentic Letters of Columbus. 139 



I was very much pleased with your letter and with what the King 

 Our Lord said, and for which I suppose you kissed his royal hands. 

 It is true that I have served their Highnesses with as much, or 

 greater, diligence and love as I might have displa}^ed in trying to 

 gain paradise. If I failed to do something it was only due either 

 upon the impossibility of the thing itself, or upon its being entirely 

 beyond my knowledge and my power. God, Our Lord, requires in 

 such cases only the will. ; 



At the request of Treasurer Morales I made there two appoint- 

 ments in favor of two brothers named Forres. I made one of them 

 a Captain and the other an Auditor. Neither of them had ability to 

 fill his position; but I, in the desire to provide those places, and 

 through love to the person who recommended them, made ;the. 

 appointments. Both men soon turned vainer than they had ever 

 been. I overlooked more acts of theirs' than I had done for my rel- 

 atives, and they were such as to deserve graver punishment than a 

 simple verbal reprimand. They went to such an extreme as not to 

 allow me, even if I had been willing, to change the decision which I 

 reached. The record of the case will prove what I say. They 

 revolted in the island of Jamaica, and I was as astonished by their 

 actions as I had been by seeing the light of the sun turned into 

 darkness. I was then almost at the point of death, and they made 

 me suffer cruelly, without any cause for it, for no less than five 

 months. At last I made them all prisoners, but afterwards Iset- 

 them all, except the Captain, at liberty. I desired to bring the Cap- 

 tain as a prisoner before Their Highnesses. A petition, made upon 

 oath, which was addressed to me and which I fcjrward to vou with 

 this letter, will give you full information about this affair, although 

 the record of the case will better explain the whole thing. Tliat 

 record and the clerk who attended it are coming in a vessel whose 

 arrival I am expecting from day to day. The said prisoner was kept' 

 and retained in Santo Domingo by the Governor. His punctilious-: 

 ness compelled him to do so. There was a provision in my intro- 

 duction by which all were commanded to obey my orders, and full 

 jurisdiction was granted me in civil and criminal cases concerning all 

 those who had come with me. But this provision was of no a,vail 

 with the Governor, because he said that it was not meant for his 

 district, and was not applicable to it. Afterwards he sent him here 

 without record or anything in writing to the Lords who have charge 

 of all the business of the Indies; but they did not receive him and 

 both brothers are free. I will not wonder if Our Lord punishes 

 some one for this. They went there as unprincipled and shameless 

 as ever. Such an act of jealousy and treason as this was never heard 

 of before. I wrote to Their Highnesses about this matter and I said 

 to them that it was not right for them to consent to such a slight to 

 me. I also wrote to the Treasurer and asked him, as a favor, not to 

 pass his sentence upon words which they might say to him without 

 giving me a hearing. Now it will be right for you to remind him of 

 my request. I do not know how they will daie to go before him with 

 such a scheme. I have written to him again, and enclosed a copy of 



