The discontented colonists saw that the day of reckoning had come for
their unpopular governor. They exulted in it; and Bobadilla, who
realized the satisfactory impression he was making, then and there
opened a fourth letter which commanded that he, Bobadilla, should
straightway pay all arrears of wages to the men who had worked on San
Domingo. As nearly all the men had gone unpaid for a long time past
(owing to utter lack of funds), when they heard this last proclamation,
they hailed Bobadilla as a benefactor, and his narrow, mean soul swelled
with pride.
To be sure, the monarchs really had issued all these letters; but
Bobadilla was to read and act upon the second and third letters only in
case Columbus refused to obey the first; and here, without giving
Columbus any opportunity to speak for himself, Bobadilla had gone to the
extreme limit of his powers. It makes one recall Shakespeare's lines
about
"Man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority....
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep."
By the end of the second day the new governor had seized the Admiral's
house. Next he sent a search party to find the two brothers and bid them
return. This Christopher and Bartholomew did at once; and Bobadilla,
whose noble birth had not given him a noble soul, treated the grumblers
and talebearers of San Domingo to the shameful sight of the Discoverer
of the New World marching in chains to prison!
While Columbus had not been a successful ruler, it must be borne in mind
that the men he was expected to rule were a most ungovernable lot.
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