Owing to hardship and discontent, some of the colonists carried complaints to Spain.  Bishop Fonseca, who had charge of colonial affairs, upheld the complainants, and in 1495 Juan Aguado was sent as royal commissioner to Espanola.  Aguado prepared a report, fearing the effects of which, Columbus returned to Spain at the same time (1496) with him.  A brother of Columbus was left in charge of the government at Espanola.  The Spanish sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, dismissed the charges against Columbus, and on May 30, 1498, he sailed from San Lucar on his third voyage to the New World.

The great navigator was no longer the powerful, enduring man of six years before.  Exposure, months of sleepless watching, anxiety, and tropical fevers had at length done their work.  The bright intellect, the vivid imagination, the great heart, the generous nature, would be the same until death, but the constitution was shattered.  The admiral now suffered from ophthalmia, gout, and a complication of diseases.  The last six years of his life were destined to be a time of much and cruel suffering, aggravated by ingratitude, perfidy, and injustice.

In fitting out the third expedition every petty annoyance and obstruction that the malice of Bishop Fonseca could invent was used to thwart and delay the admiral.  Each subordinate official knew that insolence to the object of the Bishop’s envy and dislike, and neglect of his wishes, were the surest ways to the favor of his chief.  One creature of Fonseca, named Jimeno de Briviesca, carried his insolence beyond the bounds of the endurance even of the dignified and long-suffering admiral, who very properly took him by the scruff of the neck on one occasion and kicked him off the poop of the flag-ship.  The delays of Fonseca and his agents caused incalculable injury to the public service, as will presently appear.

The sovereigns had ordered that six million maravedis—­about ten thousand dollars—­should be granted for the equipment of the expedition, and that eight vessels should be provided.  The contractor for provisions was Jonato Berardi, a Florentine merchant settled at Seville; and, owing to his death, the contracting work fell upon his assistant Amerigo Vespucci, who was very actively employed on this service from April, 1497, to May, 1498.  In 1492 Vespucci came to Spain as a partner of an Italian trader at Cadiz named Donato Nicolini, and he afterward became the chief clerk or agent of Berardi.  It was thus that Columbus first became acquainted with Amerigo Vespucci, when the admiral had reached the ripe age of forty-five.  As for his provisions, a good deal of the meat turned bad on the voyage, and the contract was not very satisfactorily carried out.  It is strange that this beef and biscuit contractor should have given his name to the New World, but perhaps not more strange than that a bacon contractor should be the patron saint of England and of Genoa.