Folly in working mines too foon.

which the Admiral brought out with him was difproportioned to his means of fustaining them. Provifions and medicines began to fail; sickness pervaded the whole armament; and men of all ranks and stations, hidalgoes, people of the court and ecclefiaftics, were all obliged to work manually under regulations ftrictly enforced. The rage and vexation of these men, many of whom had come out with the notion of finding gold ready for them on the sea shore, may be imagined; and complaints of Columbus's harsh way of dealing with those under him (probably not one whit harsher than was abfolutely neceffary to save them) now took their rise and pursued him ever after to his ruin. The colonists were fomewhat cheered at this time by hearing of gold mines and seeing specimens of ore brought from thence; and the Admiral went himself and founded the Fort of St. Thomas in the mining district of Cibao. But the Spanish colonists gained very little real advantage from these gold mines, which they began working at before they had confolidated around them the means of living: in fact dealing with the mines in Hifpaniola, as if they had been found out in an old country and that there was nothing to do but to work them.

There was also another idea and perhaps quite

further

as mischievous a one, which stood in the way of the steady improvement of these early Spanish colonies. The Catholic Sovereigns had unfortunately impressed upon Columbus their wish that he should devote himself to further discovery, a Rage for wish but too readily furthered by his enterprizing discovery. fpirit. The hankering of Los Reyes for further discovery was foftered by their jealousy of the Portuguese. The Portuguese were discovering India, going eastward. They, the Spaniards, thought they were discovering India, going weftward. The more rapidly, therefore, each nation could advance and plant its standard, the more of much-coveted India it would be able to claim. Acting upon fuch views, Columbus now goes upon further discovery, notwithstanding his little colonies at Isabella and St. Thomas must have needed all his authority and fagacity to protect and reftrain them. He nominates a council to manage the government during his abfence, with his brother Don Diego as Prefident of it; he appoints Don Pedro Margarite Captain-General; and then puts to fea, the 24th April, 1494.

In the course of the voyage that then enfued, the Admiral made many important discoveries, Cuba and Jamaica amongst them Cuba, Jamaica, and the cluster of difcovered little islands called the " Garden of the Queen." 1494.

The navigation amongst these islands was fo difficult, that the Admiral is faid to have been thirty two days without fleeping. Certain it is, that after he had left the island called La Mona, and when he was approaching the island of San Juan, a drowsiness which Las Cafas calls " peftilential," but which might be juft as well attributed to the privations, cares, and anxieties that the Admiral had now undergone for many months, seized upon him and entirely deprived him of the use of his fenfes.*

His object in going to San Juan was to have captured Cannibals there; and Las Cafas looks upon this lethargical attack as a judgment upon the Admiral for fo unjust a manner of endeavouring to introduce Christianity. The mariners turned the fleet homewards to Ifabella where they arrived the 29th September, 1494, bearing with them their helpless chief.

On Columbus's arrival at Isabella, where he remained ill for five months, he found his brother Bartholomew Columbus, which gladdened him much for his brothers were very near and dear

* Le dió una modorra peftilencial, que totalmente le quitó el ufo de los fentidos, y todas las fuerzas, y quedo muerto, y no penfaron que un dia durara. Las Cafas. Hift. de las Indias. MSS. lib. 1, cap. 99.

to him and I recollect that on some occafion he ; tells his eldest fon Diego to make much of his brother Ferdinand; for, fays he, I have never found better friends, " on my right hand and on

my left," than my brothers. Afterwards came Antonio de Torres with provifions and all things needful. But nothing, we are told, delighted the Admiral fo much as the despatches from the Court: for he was a faithful, loyal man, who loved to do his duty to those who employed him, and to have his faithfulness recognised. Peace or delight, however, was not at any time to be long enjoyed by the Admiral, for he finds his colony in a fad state of diforganization, the Indians in arms against the Spaniards, and Father Buil, Don Pedro Margarite and other principal perfons gone home to Spain in the ships which had brought Bartholomew Columbus.

The Admiral, before his departure, had given a most injudicious command to Margarite to put himself at the head of 400 men and go through the Country, with the double object of impreffing the natives with refpect for the power of the Spaniards and of freeing the colony from fupporting these 400 men. Columbus's inftructions to Margarite were, to obferve the people and the natural productions of the country through

which he should pafs: to keep the troop in three divifions, to do rigorous juftice in order to prevent the Spaniards from injuring the Indians, or the Indians the Spaniards, to treat the Indians kindly, to get provifions by purchase if poffible, if not, by any other means they could, and to capture Caonabó and his brothers either by force or artifice.*

The doings of the men under Margarite were fimilar to those of the Spaniards formerly left at La Navidad. They went ftraggling over the country; they confumed the provisions of the poor Indians, astonishing them by their voracious appetites; waste, rapine, injury and infult followed in their steps; and from henceforth there is but little hope of the two races living peaceably together, at least upon equal terms. The Indians were now fwarming about the Spaniards with hoftile intent; as Muñoz well fays " they had "paffed from terror to defpair: "† and but for the opportune arrival of the Admiral, the Spanish

* Munoz. Hift. del. Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 5, cap. 10.

+ Crecen las infolencias hafta el punto de hacerse intolerables á los vecinos de la Vega. Los foldados, fin cabeza que los adune y contenga, corren divididos por varias partes, entregándose á quanto les dicta la necefidad, la pasion, y el antojo. Canfados de fufrir los miferables Indios pafan del terror á la desesperacion. Muñoz. Hift. del. Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 5, fec. 25..