for their subsistence.  Although by this contrivance the Spaniards suffered greatly from want, and by ranging after the Indians, were often forced to feed on filthy and unwholesome things so that many of them died; yet the calamity fell heavily on the Indians themselves, who wandered about with their families in the utmost distress, not daring to hunt or fish, or to seek provisions, and skulking on the damp grounds, along the rivers, or among the mountains.  Owing to these hardships and the want of proper food, a violent distemper broke out among the natives which carried off vast multitudes; insomuch that, through that illness and the casualities of the war, a third part of the population of the island had died by the year 1496.

Friar Boyle and Don Peter Margarite, who had deserted the island without leave, as before related, combined together on their return into Spain to discredit the admiral and his discoveries, because they had not found gold laid up in chests, or growing on trees, ready to lay hold of.  They also grossly misrepresented the conduct of the admiral in his government of the colony; and there being other letters sent against him in the four ships commanded by Antonio de Torres, their Catholic majesties began to listen to the aspersions of the malcontents.  Owing to this, about the same time that Columbus was taking the field against the insurgents in the Royal Plain, their majesties sent out Juan Aguado, one of the pages of their bed chamber, with authority to inquire into the actual situation of affairs in Hispaniola.  They sent at the same time four ships under his command, carrying provisions and other necessaries for the assistance of the colony.  The credentials with which he was furnished were in the following terms:  “Gentlemen, yeomen, and others residing in the Indies, we send you our page of the bed chamber, Juan Aguado, who will discourse with you in our name, and to whom we command you to give full credit.  Given at Madrid on the 9th of April.”  Aguado arrived at Isabella about the month of October, when the admiral was absent in the province of Maguana, prosecuting the war against the brothers of Caunabo.  He immediately began to carry himself with a high hand, intermeddling in the government, reproving some of the officers of the colony who had been appointed by the admiral, imprisoning others, and paying no respect to Don Bartholomew Columbus, who had been left to govern the town of Isabella.  He even resolved to go after the admiral with a military escort of cavalry and infantry, who gave out on their march that another admiral was come, who would kill the old one:  The natives, being greatly dissatisfied by the war and the tribute of gold, were much pleased with this news; and several of the caciques met together privately in the house of a cacique named Manicaotex, whose territories were near the river Yaqui, when they agreed to complain against the admiral, and to demand redress of their grievances from the