No reply came to any of these letters, and Columbus sent word that he still regarded his authority as paramount in the island.  For reply to this he received the Sovereigns’ message to him which we have seen, commanding him to put himself under the direction of Bobadilla.  There was no mistaking this; there was the order in plain words; and with I know not what sinkings of heart Columbus at last set out for San Domingo.  Bobadilla had expected resistance, but the Admiral, whatever his faults, knew how to behave with, dignity in a humiliating position; and he came into the city unattended on August 23, 1500.  On the outskirts of the town he was met by Bobadilla’s guards, arrested, put in chains, and lodged in the fortress, the tower of which exists to this day.  He seemed to himself to be the victim of a particularly petty and galling kind of treachery, for it was his own cook, a man called Espinoza, who riveted his gyves upon him.

There remained Bartholomew to be dealt with, and he, being at large and in command of the army, might not have proved such an easy conquest, but that Christopher, at Bobadilla’s request, wrote and advised him to submit to arrest without any resistance.  Whether Bartholomew acquiesced or not is uncertain; what is certain is that he also was captured and placed in irons, and imprisoned on one of the caravels.  James in one caravel, Bartholomew in another, and Christopher in the fortress, and all in chains—­this is what it has come to with the three sons of old Domenico.

The trial was now begun, if trial that can be called which takes place in the absence of the culprit or his representative.  It was rather the hearing of charges against Christopher and his brothers; and we may be sure that every discontented feeling in the island found voice and was formulated into some incriminating charge.  Columbus was accused of oppressing the Spanish settlers by making them work at harsh and unnecessary labour; of cutting down their allowance of food, and restricting their liberty; of punishing them cruelly and unduly; of waging wars unjustly with the natives; of interfering with the conversion of the natives by hastily collecting them and sending them home as slaves; of having secreted treasures which should have been delivered to the Sovereigns—­this last charge, like some of the others, true.  He had an accumulation of pearls of which he had given no account to Fonseca, and the possession of which he excused by the queer statement that he was waiting to announce it until he could match it with an equal amount of gold!  He was accused of hating the Spaniards, who were represented as having risen in the late rebellion in order to protect the natives and avenge their own wrongs—­, and generally of having abused his office in order to enrich his own family and gratify his own feelings.  Bobadilla appeared to believe all these charges; or perhaps he recognised their nature, and yet saw that there was a sufficient degree of truth in them