followers of Roldan, who had been sent back under the terms of Columbus's
feeble capitulation. The same ships brought a great quantity of slaves,
which the colonists were able to show had been brought by the permission
of the Admiral; they carried native girls also, many of them pregnant,
many with new-born babies; and these also came with the permission of the
Admiral. The ships further carried the Admiral's letter complaining of
the conspiracy of Roldan and containing the unfortunate request for a
further licence to extend the slave trade. These circumstances were
probably enough to turn the scale of Isabella's opinion against the
Admiral's administration. The presence of the slaves particularly
angered her kind womanly heart. "What right has he to give away my
vassals?" she exclaimed, and ordered that they should all be sent back,
and that in addition all the other slaves who had come home should be
traced and sent back; although of course it was impossible to carry out
this last order.

At any rate there was no longer any hesitation about sending out a
commissioner, and the Sovereigns chose one Francisco de Bobadilla, an
official of the royal household, for the performance of this difficult
mission. As far as we can decipher him he was a very ordinary official
personage; prejudiced, it is possible, against an administration that had
produced such disastrous results and which offended his orderly official
susceptibilities; otherwise to be regarded as a man exactly honest in the
performance of what he conceived to be his duties, and entirely
indisposed to allow sentiment or any other extraneous matter to interfere
with such due performance. We shall have need to remember, when we see
him at work in Espanola, that he was not sent out to judge between
Columbus and his Sovereigns or between Columbus and the world, but to
investigate the condition of the colony and to take what action he
thought necessary. The commission which he bore to the Admiral was in