Ferdinand was obliged to recognise that this whole business of discovery
and colonisation had become a very different thing to what it had been
when Columbus was the only discoverer; and he was obviously of opinion
that, as Columbus's office had once been conveniently withdrawn from him,
it would only be disastrous to reinstate him in it. Of course he did not
say so at once; but reasons were given for judicious delay in the
Admiral's reappointment. It was represented to him that the colony,
being in an extremely unsettled state, should be given a short period of
rest, and also that it would be as well for him to wait until the people
who had given him so much trouble in the island could be quietly and
gradually removed. Two years was the time mentioned as suitable for an
interregnum, and it is probable that it was the intention of Isabella,
although not of Ferdinand, to restore Columbus to his office at the end
of that time.


In the meantime it became necessary to appoint some one to supersede
Bobadilla; for the news that arrived periodically from Espanola during
the year showed that he had entirely failed in his task of reducing the
island to order. For the wholesome if unequal rigours of Columbus
Bobadilla had substituted laxness and indulgence, with the result that
the whole colony was rapidly reduced to a state of the wildest disorder.
Vice and cruelty were rampant; in fact the barbarities practised upon the
natives were so scandalous that even Spanish opinion, which was never
very sympathetic to heathen suffering, was thoroughly shocked and
alarmed. The Sovereigns therefore appointed Nicholas de Ovando to go out
and take over the command, with instructions to use very drastic means
for bringing the colony to order. How he did it we shall presently see;
in the meantime all that was known of him (the man not having been tried
yet) was that he was a poor knight of Calatrava, a man respected in royal