370 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 



beard to grow in the manner of Franciscan monks, and 

 had clad himself in a garb fashioned and colored like 

 theirs, girded only with a cord. Nor was he much anima- 

 ted by the indifferent reception which he met with, gen- 

 erally, among his misinformed and fickle countrymen. 

 His sovereigns, indeed, received him graciously, and even 

 kindly ; and yet their exertions, situated as Spain then 

 was, were insufficient to raise a third expedition for 

 him until the spring of 1498. On the 30th of May in that 

 year, still undiscouraged by all his disappointments and 

 distresses, he sailed westward once more with a squad- 

 ron of six vessels. In the course of this voyage he dis- 

 covered Trinidad, and navigated the Gulf of Paria to a 

 great extent, in the expectation of arriving at the end of 

 what he considered a large island. Disappointed in this 

 hope, worn down with labor and hardships, parched with 

 fever, racked by gout but not even now less sanguine 

 than ever before he returned to Isabella again, hag- 

 gard, emaciated and almost blind. The troubles here, a 

 series of factions and mutinies of the most insolent and 

 violent character the same which had constantly harass- 

 ed his brother Bartholomew during his absence now de- 

 volved upon him ; nor was it until the year 1490 that any- 

 thing like harmony and order could be restored among 

 the colonists. 



At this time new disasters were ready to overwhelm 

 him, for the intrigues against him in Spain had been re- 

 sumed with increased bitterness. The effect was that a 

 new agent, Don Francisco de Bobadilla, an arrogant 

 and unprincipled man, but entrusted nevertheless with 

 large authority was sent out to investigate the charges 

 against the admiral, and to treat him according to the 

 result, in a great degree as he might himself think prop- 

 er. Bobadilla went far beyond Aguado in his insolence, 

 for, he not only assumed absolute authority upon his ar- 

 rival in the island, but proceeded to quiet all opposition, 

 real or imaginary, by force ; summoned Columbus to ap- 

 pear before him ; put him and his brother in chains ; and 

 in October of the same season sent them for trial to 

 Spain, shackled like the vilest culprits, and amidst the 

 scoffs and shouts of a servile and disorderly populace. 



