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He nominated a council to manage the government during his absence, with his brother Don Diego as president of it; he appointed a certain Don Pedro Margarite as captain-general; and then put to sea on the 24th of April, 1494.
Well born, well educated, well bred, he ought at least to have the spirit to carry out orders so agreeable to a gentleman of adventure; but unfortunately, although Margarite is a gentleman by birth, he is a low and dishonest dog by nature. He cannot take the decent course, cannot even play the man, and take his share in the military work of the colony.
In Lodge's strange romance 'A Margarite of America', it was stated that in the chamber of the queen one could behold "all the chaste ladies of the world, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of chrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults." Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the mouths of the dead.
Verily to them the professors of Christ brought not peace, but a sword. While Columbus was toiling under the tropical sun to make good his promises to the Crown, Margarite and Buil, having safely come home to Spain from across the seas, were busy setting forth their view of the value of his discoveries.
It was a pretty casket, made of the margarite of the sea. Within it lay a faded, fallen, fragmentary thing. At first, I knew not what it could be.
Thus Don Pedro Margarite to himself. The peaceable and gentle natives soon began to resent these gross doings.
Gold and women again; instead of bartering or digging, the Spaniards had been stealing; and discipline had been relaxed, with the usual disastrous results with regard to the women of the adjacent native tribes. Pedro Margarite sent a nervous message to Columbus expressing his fear that Caonabo, the native king, should be exasperated to the point of attacking them again.
About this period there arrived in the Indies from the Court of Spain a Commissioner of Inquiry, his mission being doubtless occasioned by the various complaints made against the admiral by Father Buil, Margarite, and the Spaniards who had returned from Hispaniola. The name of this commissioner was Juan Aguado, and his powers were vouched for by the following letter from the sovereigns:
He encamps there, takes up his quarters there, will not budge from there for any Admiral; and as for James Columbus and his counsellors, they may go to the devil for all Margarite cares.
Well born, well educated, well bred, he ought at least to have the spirit to carry out orders so agreeable to a gentleman of adventure; but unfortunately, although Margarite is a gentleman by birth, he is a low and dishonest dog by nature. He cannot take the decent course, cannot even play the man, and take his share in the military work of the colony.
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