io8 Field Columiman Museum. 



In another letter he writes: "They say that Comancho and 

 Master Bernal are anxious to go back there (that is, to Santo Do- 

 mingo). They are two of those creatures for vvhom God hath made 

 no miracles. If they go it will be to do harm rather than good, but 

 they can do little because the truth will always prevail. This Master 

 Bernal was the one who started the treasonable movement. He was 

 arrested and charged with many crimes, for each of w^hich he de- 

 served to be quartered. At the request of your uncle and others he 

 was pardoned, on the condition, however, that the pardon should be 

 revoked and that he should be liable to punishment in the proper 

 way if he said the slightest thing against me and my officers. 



"As to Comancho, I will send you some legal papers. For 

 more than eight days he has remained inside the church, without daring 

 to leave it, for fear of the trouble in which he might get for his rash- 

 ness and slanders. Diego Mendez is well acquainted with Master 

 Bernal and his doings. The governor wanted to put him in prison 

 while at Hispaniolo, but at my request he left him free. They say 

 that he killed two men there with poison in revenge for some wrong 

 which did not amount to three beans." 



In 1504 he writes to Diego: "The caravel whose mast was 

 broken when leaving Santo Domingo, has arrived. She brings the 

 record of the investigation in the Porres matter. So many ugly 

 things and such a display of cruelty as will be shown there has never 

 before been seen. If Their Highnesses do not inflict the proper 

 punishment I do not know how any person will ever dare to go 

 abroad again to sen^e them." 



He writes again to Diego: " It seems to me that a good copy 

 should be made of that portion of the letter which Their Highnesses 

 wrote to me, in which they promise to fulfill their engagements with me 

 and give possession of everything to you, and that the copy be deliv- 

 ered to Their Highnesses, together with a statement in writing, ex- 

 plaining my sickness and the impossibility in which I am now pre- 

 vented to go and kiss their royal hands and feet, and saying also that 

 the Indies are going to ruin, and as if they were on fire on every 

 side." 



Diego Columbus was intended for the church. After the death 

 of his mother in Portugal he came to Spain with his father, and when 

 Columbus asked for bread and water at the gate of La Rabida he 

 was on his way to the neighboring town of Moguer, where a sister of 

 his wife, named Seiiora Mulier, was living, with whom he intended 

 to leave the boy while he went into the interior to present his plans 

 and theories to the sovereigns of Spain. It is supposed that Diego 



