Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 18, 2025
So a royal commission was sent out, an officer named Bovadilla, with absolute power to examine into the state of the colony, and supplant, if necessary, the authority of Columbus. The result was the arrest of Columbus and his brothers, who were sent to Spain in chains. What a change of fortune! I will not detail the accusations against him, just or unjust.
Finding no person at his arrival who could in any way keep him in awe, Bovadilla immediately took possession of the admirals palace, and appropriated every thing he found there to his own use as if it had fallen to him by inheritance.
Bovadilla who commanded in that wing, moved forwards with a detachment to encounter Marientu; but was immediately surrounded, and he and all his men cut to pieces. The serjeant-major, who was dispatched by Valdivia to his succour with another detachment, experienced the same fate.
This impunity was prevented by their setting out from St Domingo for Spain, as no sooner were they come to the east point of Hispaniola than there arose a terrible storm; the admiral of the fleet went to the bottom, and in her perished Bovadilla with most of the rebels, and so great was the havock among the rest, that only three or four vessels escaped of the whole eighteen.
The discontented party transmitted complaints to the court of Spain against the admiral and his brother; on which Francis de Bovadilla, a knight of the order of Calatrava, was sent out with authority to investigate the cause of the troubles in the infant colony.
He was taken, therefore, to an adjoining tent, in which were Dona Beatrix de Bovadilla, marchioness of Moya, and Don Alvaro of Portugal, son of the duke of Braganza, with two or three attendants. The Moor, ignorant of the Spanish tongue, had not understood the conversation of the guards, and supposed, from the magnificence of the furniture and the silken hangings, that this was the royal tent.
Bovadilla, invested with discretionary powers, set out with two caravels towards the end of June, 1500. On the 23rd of August, the colonists sighted the two ships, which were then endeavouring to enter the harbour of San Domingo.
Yet when at sea, the master being sensible of the unworthy proceedings of Bovadilla, would have taken off the irons from the admiral; but this he would not permit, saying, that since their majesties had commanded him to perform whatsoever Bovadilla might order in their names, and that he had been put in irons in virtue of their authority and commission, he would not be freed from them unless by the express command of their highnesses.
"Ah, well! Better a dinner of herbs where love is, than Tita!" "My breviary ah! Man's gratitude is short-lived, I had hoped You have seen nothing of the Senora Bovadilla?" "No." "Ah! she promised: but no matter a little trifle as a keepsake a gold cross, or an emerald ring, or what not I forget. And what have I to do with worldly wealth! Ah! Tita! bring me the casket."
The admiral concealed the indignation which such treatment could not but cause him, and returned good for evil, by offering wise counsel to the governor in the following instance. The fleet which was to take Bovadilla back to Europe, and to bear with it, besides the enormous lump of gold already mentioned, other treasures of great value, was ready to put to sea.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking