388 CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS. 



executioner. ' Villejo,' said he mournfully, ' whither 

 would you take me?' ' To the ship, your excellency, to 

 embark,' replied the other. 'To embark !' replied the 

 admiral earnestly: 'Villejo! do you speak the truth?' 

 ' By the life of your excellency,' replied the officer, ' it is 

 true ! ' The admiral now followed him almost with a 

 cheerfulness, though obliged to endure, on his way to the 

 shore, the scoffs and hoots of the assembled populace. 

 Villejo treated him respectfully on the passage, and would 

 even have taken off his chains ; but this, with a noble 

 dignity, he declined. 'No!' said he proudly, 'under 

 the authority of my sovereigns, Bobadilla has put these 

 chains upon me : I will wear them until they shall order 

 them to be taken off, and I will preserve them afterwards 

 as relics and memorials of the reward of my services.' It 

 is affecting to know that he thought so much of this 

 promise of his own, as to keep the chains ever after 

 hanging in his cabinet, and to request that they might 

 be buried with him when he died. It is abundantly 

 evident, that he felt, on this occasion, as on many others, 

 a great deal more than he expressed. His passions 

 were strong, but his power over them was still stronger. 

 His li% is full of illustrations of this self-control, and 

 of the great advantages of it. In danger, for example, 

 he not only secured the confidence or at least the respect 

 of the people around him by his coolness, but he was 

 perfectly possessed of his natural shrewdness of inven- 

 tions, and thus frequently contrived plans of relief with 

 as much readiness as he would have done in his closet at 

 Jiome. In one of his earliest Mediterranean voyages, he 

 effected the design of his cruise against the remonstran- 

 ces and threats of a mutinous crew, by apparently as- 

 senting to their wish to tack about altering the point 

 of the compass, and spreading all sail. The next morn- 

 ing they found themselves hundreds of miles from their 

 expected destination, and were obliged to submit to his 

 management for the rest of the voyage. So, in the first 

 voyage over the Atlantic, when his ignorant crew were 

 frightened by every new phenomenon they observed, he 

 was invariably prepared to quiet them. He kept two 

 reckonings during this vovage, in one of which, open to 



