The Catholic sovereigns had hitherto, upon the whole, behaved well to
Columbus. He had bitter enemies at court. People were for ever suggesting
to the monarchs that this foreigner was doing wrong. The admiral's son,
Ferdinand, gives a vivid picture of some of the complaints preferred
against his father. He says, "When I was at Granada, at the time the most
serene Prince Don Miguel died, more than fifty of them (Spaniards who had
returned from the Indies), as men without shame, bought a great quantity
of grapes, and sat themselves down in the court of the Alhambra, uttering
loud cries, saying, that their Highnesses and the admiral made them live
in this poor fashion on account of the bad pay they received, with many
other dishonest and unseemly things, which they kept repeating. Such was
their effrontery that when the Catholic king came forth they all
surrounded him, and got him into the midst of them, saying, 'Pay! pay!'
and if by chance I and my brother, who were pages to the most serene
Queen, happened to pass where they were, they shouted to the very heavens
saying, 'Look at the sons of the admiral of Mosquitoland, of that man who
has discovered the lands of deceit and disappointment, a place of
sepulchre and wretchedness to Spanish hidalgoes:' adding many other
insulting expressions, on which account we excused ourselves from passing
by them."


SERIOUS DISSATISFACTION.

Unjust clamour, like the above, would not alone have turned the hearts of
the Catholic sovereigns against Columbus; but this clamour was supported
by serious grounds for dissatisfaction in the state and prospects of the
colony: and when there is a constant stream of enmity and prejudice
against a man, his conduct or his fortune will, some day or other, offer