After the death of Prince Juan, Queen Isabella honoured Columbus by
attaching his two sons to her own person as pages; and her friendship
must at this time have gone far to compensate him for the coolness shown
towards him by the public at large. He might talk as much as he pleased,
but he had nothing to show for all his talk except a few trinkets, a
collection of interesting but valueless botanical specimens, and a
handful of miserable slaves. Lives and fortunes had been wrecked on the
enterprise, which had so far brought nothing to Spain but the promise of
luxurious adventure that was not fulfilled and of a wealth and glory that
had not been realised. It must have been a very humiliating circumstance
to Columbus that in the preparations which he was now (February 1498)
making for the equipment of his new expedition a great difficulty was
found in procuring ships and men. Not even before the first voyage had
so much reluctance been shown to risk life and property in the
enterprise. Merchants and sailors had then been frightened of dangers
which they did not know; now, it seemed, the evils of which they did know
proved a still greater deterrent. The Admiral was at this time the guest
of his friend Bernaldez, who has told us something of his difficulties;
and the humiliating expedient of seizing ships under a royal order had
finally to be adopted. But it would never have done to impress the
colonists also; that would have been too open a confession of failure for
the proud Admiral to tolerate.

Instead he had recourse to the miserable plan of which he had made use in
Palos; the prisons were opened, and criminals under sentence invited to
come forth and enjoy the blessings of colonial life. Even then there was
not that rush from the prison doors that might have been expected, and
some desperate characters apparently preferred the mercies of a Spanish
prison to what they had heard of the joys of the Earthly Paradise. Still
a number of criminals did doubtfully crawl forth and furnish a retinue