caravels, on shore, to wait on Ovando, and explain to him that the purpose
of his coming was to procure a vessel in exchange for one of his caravels,
which was extremely defective. He requested permission also to shelter his
squadron in the harbor; as he apprehended, from various indications, an
approaching storm. This request was refused by Ovando. Las Casas thinks it
probable that he had instructions from the sovereigns not to admit
Columbus, and that he was further swayed by prudent considerations, as San
Domingo was at that moment crowded with the most virulent enemies of the
admiral, many of them in a high state of exasperation, from recent
proceedings which had taken place against them. [123]

When the ungracious refusal of Ovando was brought to Columbus, and he
found all shelter denied him, he sought at least to avert the danger of
the fleet, which was about to sail. He sent back the officer therefore to
the governor, entreating him not to permit the fleet to put to sea for
several days; assuring him that there were indubitable signs of an
impending tempest. This second request was equally fruitless with the
first. The weather, to an inexperienced eye, was fair and tranquil; the
pilots and seamen were impatient to depart. They scoffed at the prediction
of the admiral, ridiculing him as a false prophet, and they persuaded
Ovando not to detain the fleet on so unsubstantial a pretext.

It was hard treatment of Columbus, thus to be denied the relief which the
state of his ships required, and to be excluded in time of distress from
the very harbor he had discovered. He retired from the river full of grief
and indignation. His crew murmured loudly at being shut out from a port of
their own nation, where even strangers, tinder similar circumstances,
would be admitted. They repined at having embarked with a commander liable
to such treatment; and anticipated nothing but evil from a voyage, in
which they were exposed to the dangers of the sea, and repulsed from the