He found the colony in a worse state than when he left it under the care of his brother Bartholomew.  The Indians had proved hostile; the colonists were lazy and turbulent; mutiny had broken out; factions prevailed, as well as general misery and discontent.  The horrors of famine had succeeded wars with the natives.  There was a general desire to leave the settlement.  Columbus tried to restore order and confidence; but the difficulty of governing such a disorderly set of adventurers was too great even for him.  He was obliged to resort to severities that made him more and more unpopular.  The complaints of his enemies reached Spain.  He was most cruelly misrepresented and slandered; and in the general disappointment, and the constant drain upon the mother country to support the colony, his enemies gained the ear of his sovereigns, and strong doubts arose in their minds about his capacity for government.  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.  It is mournful enough to see the old man brought home in irons from the world he had discovered and given to Spain.  The injustice and cruelty which he received produced a reaction, and he was once more kindly received at court, with the promise that his grievances should be redressed and his property and dignities restored.

Columbus was allowed to make one more voyage of discovery, but nothing came of it except renewed troubles, hardships, dangers, and difficulties; wars with the natives, perils of the sea, discontents, disappointments; and when at last he returned to Spain, in 1504,—­broken with age and infirmities, after twelve years of harassing cares, labors, and dangers (a checkered career of glory and suffering),—­nothing remained but to prepare for his final rest.  He had not made a fortune; he had not enriched his patrons,—­but he had discovered a continent.  His last days were spent in disquieting and fruitless negotiations to perpetuate his honors among his descendants.  He was ever jealous and tenacious of his dignities.  Ferdinand was polite, but selfish and cold; nor can this calculating prince ever be vindicated from the stain of gross ingratitude.  Columbus died in the year 1506, at the age of sixty, a disappointed man.  But honors were ultimately bestowed upon his heirs, who became grandees and dukes, and intermarried with the proudest families of Spain; and it is also said that Ferdinand himself, after the death of the great navigator, caused a monument to be erected to his memory with this inscription:  “To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a new world.”  But no man of that century needed less than Columbus a monument to perpetuate his immortal fame.