to write to them. In the course of his voyage, however, he had penned a
long letter to Dona Juana de la Torre, the aya of Prince Juan, a lady high
in favor with Queen Isabella. This letter, on his arrival at Cadiz,
Andreas Martin, the captain of the caravel, permitted him to send off
privately by express. It arrived, therefore, before the protocol of the
proceedings instituted by Bobadilla, and from this document the sovereigns
derived their first intimation of his treatment. [90] It contained a
statement of the late transactions of the island, and of the wrongs he had
suffered, written with his usual artlessness and energy. To specify the
contents would be but to recapitulate circumstances already recorded. Some
expressions, however, which burst from him in the warmth of his feelings,
are worthy of being noted. "The slanders of worthless men," says he, "have
done me more injury than all my services have profited me." Speaking of
the misrepresentations to which he was subjected, he observes: "Such is
the evil name which I have acquired, that if I were to build hospitals and
churches, they would be called dens of robbers." After relating in
indignant terms the conduct of Bobadilla, in seeking testimony respecting
his administration from the very men who had rebelled against him, and
throwing himself and his brothers in irons, without letting them know the
offences with which they were charged, "I have been much aggrieved," he
adds, "in that a person should be sent out to investigate my conduct, who
knew that if the evidence which he could send home should appear to be of
a serious nature, he would remain in the government." He complains that,
in forming an opinion of his administration, allowances had not been made
for the extraordinary difficulties with which he had to contend, and the
wild state of the country over which he had to rule. "I was judged," he
observes, "as a governor who had been sent to take charge of a
well-regulated city, under the dominion of well-established laws, where
there was no danger of every thing running to disorder and ruin; but I
ought to be judged as a captain, sent to subdue a numerous and hostile