In the meantime it became necessary to appoint some one to supersede Bobadilla; for the news that arrived periodically from Espanola during the year showed that he had entirely failed in his task of reducing the island to order.  For the wholesome if unequal rigours of Columbus Bobadilla had substituted laxness and indulgence, with the result that the whole colony was rapidly reduced to a state of the wildest disorder.  Vice and cruelty were rampant; in fact the barbarities practised upon the natives were so scandalous that even Spanish opinion, which was never very sympathetic to heathen suffering, was thoroughly shocked and alarmed.  The Sovereigns therefore appointed Nicholas de Ovando to go out and take over the command, with instructions to use very drastic means for bringing the colony to order.  How he did it we shall presently see; in the meantime all that was known of him (the man not having been tried yet) was that he was a poor knight of Calatrava, a man respected in royal circles for the performance of minor official duties, but no very popular favourite; honest according to his lights—­lights turned rather low and dim, as was often the case in those days.  A narrow-minded man also, without sympathy or imagination, capable of cruelty; a tough, stiff-necked stock of a man, fit to deal with Bobadilla perhaps, but hardly fit to deal with the colony.  Spain in those days was not a nursery of administration.  Of all the people who were sent out successively to govern Espanola and supersede one another, the only one who really seems to have had the necessary natural ability, had he but been given the power, was Bartholomew Columbus; but unfortunately things were in such a state that the very name of Columbus was enough to bar a man from acceptance as a governor of Espanola.

It was not for any lack of powers and equipment that this procession of governors failed in their duties.  We have seen with what authority Bobadilia had been entrusted; and Ovando had even greater advantages.  The instructions he received showed that the needs of the new colonies were understood by Ferdinand and Isabella, if by no one else.  Ovando was not merely appointed Governor of Espanola but of the whole of the new territory discovered in the west, his seat of government being San Domingo.  He was given the necessary free hand in the matters of punishment, confiscation, and allotment of lands.  He was to revoke the orders which had been made by Bobadilla reducing the proportion of gold payable to the Crown, and was empowered to take over one-third of the. gold that was stored on the island, and one-half of what might be found in the future.  The Crown was to have a monopoly of all trade, and ordinary supplies were only to be procured through the Crown agent.  On the other hand, the natives were to be released from slavery, and although forced to work in the mines, were to be paid for their labour —­a distinction which in the working out did not produce much difference.  A body of Franciscan monks accompanied Ovando for the purpose of tackling the religious question with the necessary energy; and every regulation that the kind heart of Isabella could think of was made for the happiness and contentment of the Indians.