DISCONTENTS AT

Chapter VIIT.

HE embryo city of Isabella was rapidly assuming a form. A dry stone wall surrounded it, to protect it from any

sudden attack of the natives, although the most friendly disposition was evinced by the Indians of the vicinity, who brought supplies of their simple articles of food and gave them in exchange for European trifles. On the day of the Epiphany, the 6th of February, the church being sufficiently completed, high mass was celebrated with great pomp and ceremony by Friar Boyle and the twelve ecclesiastics. The affairs of the settlement being thus apparently in a regular train, Columbus, though still confined by indisposition, began to make arrangements for his contemplated expedition to the mountains of Cibao, when

an unexpected disturbance in his little community for a time engrossed his attention.

The sailing of the fleet to Spain had been a melancholy sight to many, whose terms of enlistment compelled them to remain on the island. Disappointed in their expectations of immediate wealth, disgusted with the labors imposed on them, and appalled by the maladies prevalent throughout the community, they began to look with horror upon the surrounding wilderness, as destined to be the grave of their hopes and of themselves. When the last sail disappeared they felt as if completely severed from their country, and the tender recollections of home, which had been checked for a time by the novelty and bustle around them, rushed with sudden force upon their minds. To return to Spain became their ruling idea, and the same want of reflection which had hurried them into the enterprise without inquiring into its real nature, now prompted them to extricate themselves from it by any means however desperate.

Where popular discontents prevail, there is seldom wanting some daring spirit to give them a dangerous direction. One Bernal Diaz de Pisa, a man of some importance, who had held a civil office about the court, had come out with the expedition as comptroller. He

seemed to have presumed upon his official powers and to have had early differences with the Admiral. Disgusted with his employment in the colony, he soon made a faction among the discontented, and proposed that they should take advantage of the indisposition of Columbus to seize upon some or all of the five ships in the harbor and return in them to Spain. It would be easy to justify their clandestine return by preferring a complaint against the Admiral, representing the fallacy of his enterprises and accusing him of gross deceptions and exaggerations in his accounts of the countries he had discovered. It is probable that some of these people really considered him culpable of the charges thus fabricated against him; for, in the disappointment of their avaricious hopes, they overlooked the real value of those fertile islands which were to enrich nations by the produce of their soil. Every country was sterile and unprofitable in their eyes that did not immediately teem with gold. Though they had continual proofs, in the specimens brought by the natives to the settlement, or furnished to Ojeda and Gorvalan, that the rivers and mountains in the interior abounded with ore, yet even these daily proofs were falsified in their eyes. One Fermin Cedo, a wrong-headed and obstinate man, who had

come out as assayer and purifier of metals, had imbibed the same prejudice against the expedition with Bernal Diaz. He pertinaciously insisted that there was no gold in the island; or at least that it was found in such inconsiderable quantities as not to repay the search. He declared that the large grains of virgin ore brought by the natives had been melted; that they had been the slow accumulations of many years, having remained a long time in the families of the Indians, and handed down from generation to generation—which in many instances was probably the case. Other specimens of a large size he pronounced of a very inferior quality, and debased with brass by the natives. The words of this man outweighed the evidence of facts, ard many joined him in the belief that the island was really destitute of gold. It was not until some time afterwards that the real character of Fermin Cedo was ascertained, and the discovery made that his ignorance was at least equal to his obstinacy and presumption-qualities apt to enter largely into the compound of a meddlesome and mischievous man.*

Encouraged by such substantial co-operation, a number of turbulent spirits concerted to take immediate possession of the ships and

* Cura de los Palacios, cap. 120, 122, MS.

make sail for Europe. The influence of Bernal Diaz de Pisa at court would obtain for them a favorable hearing, and they trusted to their unanimous representations to prejudice Columbus in the opinion of the public, ever fickle in its smiles and most ready to turn suddenly and capriciously from the favorite it has most idolized.

Fortunately this mutiny was discovered before it proceeded to action. Columbus immediately ordered the ringleaders to be arrested. On making investigation, a memorial or information against himself, full of slanders and misrepresentations, was found concealed in the buoy of one of the ships. It was in the handwriting of Bernal Diaz. The Admiral conducted himself with great moderation. Out of respect to the rank and station of Diaz, he forbore to inflict any punishment; but confined him on board one of the ships to be sent to Spain for trial, together with the process or investigation of his offence, and the seditious memorial which had been discovered. Several of the inferior mutineers were punished according to the degree of their culpability, but not with the severity which their offence deserved. To guard against any recurrence of a similar attempt, Columbus ordered that all the guns and naval munitions should be taken out of