When Columbus's warning about the storm came, eighteen
caravels lay in the harbor ready to start for Spain with eighteen
hundredweight of gold. One nugget alone, Las Casas tells us, weighed
thirty-five pounds. Out of all this treasure, Columbus's share was forty
pounds, and that was set aside and loaded on the poorest, leakiest
caravel of the lot, called _The Needle_, to be sent to Spain and to
remain there until he should appear to claim it.
Ovando, like Columbus, wanted the colony to appear profitable in the
eyes of the monarchs, and was eager to start off this first golden
cargo, also all the spoils he had filched from the natives since his
arrival. Then, too, the Comendador Bobadilla was already aboard, and
Ovando was eager to be rid of him and also of Francisco Roldan, who
never had been, and never could be, of use in any colony; so Ovando,
when he read Columbus's warning, threw back his head and exclaimed,
"Nonsense! Let them start just the same!"
And start they did; and scarcely were the vessels out of sight when the
hurricane broke. Of the eighteen ships only one ever got to Spain. Three
returned much damaged to San Domingo. The others went down. The one
vessel that reached Spain was the leaky little tub called _The
Needle_, laden with the Admiral's gold! Thus the same storm that sent
many of his San Domingo enemies to a watery grave saved for him the
first profits he received from the island.
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