At last the ships arrived which were to take them from the island, where
the unfeeling Ovando had suffered them to languish above a year, exposed
to misery in all its various forms. When he arrived at St. Domingo,
Ovando treated him with every kind of insult and injustice. Columbus
submitted in silence, but became extremely impatient to quit a country
where he had been treated with such barbarity.

The preparations were soon finished, and he set sail for Spain with two
ships, but disaster still pursued him to the end of his course. He
suffered acutely from a painful and dangerous disease, and his mind was
kept uneasy and anxious by a continued succession of storms. One of the
vessels being disabled, was forced back to St. Domingo, and in the other
he sailed 700 leagues with jury-masts, and reached with difficulty the
port of St. Lucar in Spain, 1504.

On his arrival he received the fatal news of the death of his patroness
queen Isabella, from whom he had hoped for the redress of his wrongs.

He applied to the king, who, instead of confirming the titles and
honours which he had formerly conferred upon him, insulted him with the
proposal of renouncing them all for a pension.

Disgusted with the ingratitude of a monarch whom he had served with
fidelity and success, exhausted with the calamities which he had
endured, and broken with infirmities, this great and good man breathed
his last at Valladolid, a.d. 1506, in the 69th year of his age.

He was buried in the cathedral at Seville, and on his tomb was engraved
an epitaph commemorating his discovery of a New World.