CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS. 387 



the historian Las Casas, ' with unwashed front, riveted 

 the fetters upon his master with as much alacrity as 

 though he were serving him with choice and savory 

 viands.' ' I knew the fellow,' he adds, ' and I think his 

 name was Espinosa.' The admiral being disposed of in 

 this manner, there was no difficulty in proving him 

 guilty of every charge of which he might be accused. 

 He was found, accordingly, to have compelled gentlemen 

 to labor in a case of public emergency, with their own 

 hands ; to have occasioned all manner of mutinies and 

 seditions by his mismanagement, and then suppressed 

 them by ' levying war against the government.' He had 

 confined, starved, or otherwise punished various persons, 

 all of whom were, of course, entirely innocent. Moreover, 

 he had embezzled pearls, or at least pearls were found in his 

 house : and the farther inference was, that the proceeds 

 of all his voyages had been appropriated to his own 

 benefit. 



There can be no doubt that these base slanders were 

 made a part of the suffering of Columbus during his 

 confinement. The confinement itself he knew to be as 

 much without cause as it was without authority. ' I 

 make oath,' he writes at this time, ' that I do not know 

 for what I am imprisoned,' and again, ' I was taken 

 and thrown with two brothers into a ship, loaded with 

 irons, with little clothing and much ill treatment, without 

 being convicted or summoned by justice.' The latter 

 step was subsequent to those mentioned already. Boba- 

 dilla, finding he had succeeded so well in his own abuse 

 of Columbus, that insulting pasquinades were posted 

 up at every corner, and horns blown by the mob in the 

 neighborhood of the prison, felt secure in going still far- 

 ther. Several vessels were now ready to sail for Spain, 

 and he determined to put the admiral and his brothers 

 on board of them, under charge of one Villejo. This 

 man, who happened to be a gentleman, repaired to the 

 prison, with a guard, to conduct his venerable prisoner 

 to the shore. He found him still in chains, dejected and 

 silent. He had long feared that he should fall a sacrifice 

 to the vulgar and violent passions let loose around him ; 

 and he naturally looked toVillejo, when he entered, as his 



