recent charge of levying war against the government, there was not a
hardship, abuse, nor sedition in the island, that was not imputed to the
misdeeds of Columbus and his brothers. Besides the usual accusations of
inflicting oppressive labor, unnecessary tasks, painful restrictions,
short allowances of food, and cruel punishments upon the Spaniards, and
waging unjust wars against the natives, they were now charged with
preventing the conversion of the latter, that they might send them slaves
to Spain, and profit by their sale. This last charge, so contrary to the
pious feelings of the admiral, was founded on his having objected to the
baptism of certain Indians of mature age, until they could be instructed
in the doctrines of Christianity; justly considering it an abuse of that
holy sacrament to administer it thus blindly. [85]

Columbus was charged, also, with having secreted pearls, and other
precious articles, collected in his voyage along the coast of Paria, and
with keeping the sovereigns in ignorance of the nature of his discoveries
there, in order to exact new privileges from them; yet it was notorious
that he had sent home specimens of the pearls, and journals and charts of
his voyage, by which others had been enabled to pursue his track.

Even the late tumults, now that the rebels were admitted as evidence, were
all turned into matters of accusation. They were represented as spirited
and loyal resistances to tyranny exercised upon the colonists and the
natives. The well-merited punishments inflicted upon certain of the
ring-leaders were cited as proofs of a cruel and revengeful disposition,
and a secret hatred of Spaniards. Bobadilla believed, or affected to
believe, all these charges. He had, in a manner, made the rebels his
confederates in the ruin of Columbus. It was become a common cause with
them. He could no longer, therefore, conduct himself towards them as a
judge. Guevara, Riquelme, and their fellow-convicts, were discharged