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customed to the laborious exertions of industry, that they were fatisfied with a proportion of food amazingly fmall. A handful of maize, or a little of the infipid bread made of a cassada-root, was sufficient to support men, whofe ftrength and fpirits were not exhaufted by any vigorous efforts either of body or mind. The Spaniards, though the moft abftemious of all the European nations, appeared to them exceffively voracious. One Spaniard confumed as much as feveral Indians. This keenness of appetite furprized them fo much, and feemed to them to be fo infatiable, that they supposed the Spaniards had left their own coun→ try, because it did not produce as much as was requifite to gratify their immoderate defire of food, and had come among them in queft of nourishment. Self-prefervation prompted them to wifh for the departure of guefts who wasted so fast their flender stock of provifions. The injuries which they fuffered, added to their impatience for this event. They had long expected that the Spaniards would retire of their own accord. They now perceived that, in order to avert the deftruction with which they were threatened, either by the flow confumption of famine, or by the violence of their oppreffors, it was neceffary to affume courage, to attack those formidable invaders with united force, and drive them from the fettlements of which they had violently taken poffeffion.

Such were the fentiments which univerfally prevailed among the Indians, when Columbus returned to Ifabella. Inflamed by the unprovoked outrages of the Spaniards, with a degree of rage of which their gentle natures, formed to fuffer and submit, feemed highly fufceptible, they waited only for a fignal from their leaders to fall upon the colony. Some of the caziques had already furprised and cut off several stragglers. The dread of this impending danger united the Spaniards, and re-established the authority of Columbus, as they faw no profpect of safety but in committing themselves to his prudent guidance. It was now neceffary to have recourfe to arms, the employing of which against the Indians, Columbus had hitherto avoided with the greatest folicitude. Unequal as the conflict may feem, between the naked inhabitants of the New World, armed with clubs, fticks hardened in the fire, wooden fwords, and arrows pointed with bones or flints; and troops accustomed to the difcipline, and provided with the inftruments of deftruction known in the European art of war, the fituation of the Spaniards was far from being exempt from danger. The vaft fuperiority of the natives in number, compenfated many defects. An handful of men was about to encounter a whole nation. One adverfe event, or even any adverfe delay in determining the fate of the war, might prove

fatal

fatal to the Spaniards. Confcious that fuccefs depended on the vigour and rapidity of his operations, Columbus inftantly affembled his forces. They were reduced to a very small number. Difeafes, engendered by the warmth and humidity of the country, or occafioned by their own licentiousness, had raged among them with much violence; experience had not yet taught them the art either of curing these, or the precautions requifite for guarding them; two-thirds of the original adventurers were dead, and many of thofe who furvived were incapable of fervice. The body which took the field on March 24, 1495, confifted only of two hundred foot, twenty horfe, and twenty large dogs; and how ftrange foever it may feem, to mention the last as compofing part of a military force, they were not perhaps the leaft formidable and deftructive of the whole, when employed against naked and timid Indians. All the caziques of the island, Guacanahari excepted, who retained an inviolable attachment to the Spaniards, were in arms to oppose Columbus, with forces amounting, if we may believe the Spanish hiftorians, to a hundred thousand men. Instead of attempting to draw the Spaniards into the faftneffes of the woods and mountains, they were so imprudent as to take their station in the Vega Real, the most open plain in the country. Columbus did not allow them time to perceive their error, or to alter their position. He attacked them during the night, when undisciplined troops are leaft capable of acting with union and concert, and obtained an easy and bloodless victory. The confternation with which the Indians were filled by the noise and havoc made by the fire-arms, by the impetuous force of the cavalry, and the firft onfet of the dogs, was fo great, that they threw down their weapons, and fled without attempting refiftance. Many were flain; more were taken prifoners, and reduced to fervitude; and fo thoroughly were the rest intimidated, that from that moment they abandoned themselves to defpair, relinquishing all thoughts of contending with aggreffors whom they deemed invincible.

Columbus employed feveral months in marching through the island, and in fubjecting it to the Spanish government, without meeting with any oppofition. He impofed a tribute upon all the inhabitants above the age of fourteen. Each perfon who lived in those districts where gold was found, was obliged to pay quarterly as much gold duft as filled a hawk's bell; from thofe in other parts of the country, twenty-five pounds of cotton were demanded. This was the first regular taxation of the Indians, and ferved as a precedent for exactions ftill more intolerable. Such an impofition was extremely contrary to thofe maxims which Columbus had hitherto inculcated with refpect to the mode of treating

them.

them. But intrigues were carrying on in the court of Spain at this juncture, in order to undermine his power and difcredit his operations, which constrained him to depart from his own fyftem of administration. Several unfavourable accounts of his conduct, as well as of the countries difcovered by him, had been tranfmitted to Spain. Margaritta and Father Boyl were now at court; and in order to justify their own conduct, or to gratify their refentment, watched with malevolent attention for every opportunity of fpreading infinuations to his detriment. Many of the courtiers viewed his growing reputation and power with envious eyes. Fonfeca, archdeacon of Seville, who was intrufted with the chief direction of Indian affairs, had conceived fuch an unfavourable opinion of Columbus, for fome reafon which the contemporary writers have not mentioned, that he liftened with partiality to every invective against him. It was not eafy for an unfriended ftranger, unpractifed in courtly arts, to counteract the machinations of fo many enemies. Co lumbus faw that there was but one method of fupporting his own credit, and of filencing all his adverfaries. He must produce fuch a quantity of gold as would not only justify what he had reported with respect to the richness of the country, but encourage Ferdinand and Ifabella to persevere in profecuting his plans. The neceffity of obtaining it, forced him not only to impofe this heavy tax upon the Indians, but to exact payment of it with extreme rigour; and may be pleaded in excufe for his deviating on this occafion from the mildness and humanity with which he uniformly treated that unhappy people.

The labour, attention, and forefight which the Indians were obliged to employ in procuring the tribute demanded of them, appeared the most intolerable of all evils, to men accustomed to pafs their days in a carelefs, improvident indolence. They were incapable of fuch a regular and perfevering exertion of industry, and felt it fuch a grievous reftraint upon their liberty, that they had recourfe to an expedient for obtaining deliverance from this yoke, which demonftrates the excess of their impatience and defpair. They formed a scheme of starving those oppreffors whom they durft not attempt to expel; and from the opinion which they entertained with refpect to the voracious appetite of the Spaniards, they concluded the execution of it to be very practicable. With this view they fufpended all the operations of agriculture; they fowed no maize, they pulled up the roots of the manioc or caffada which were planted, and retiring to the most inacceffible parts of the mountains, left the uncultivated plains to their enemies. This defpeate refolution produced in fome degree the effects which they expected. The Spaniards were reduced to extreme want; but they received fuch

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feafonable fupplies of provifions from Europe, and found fo many refources in their own ingenuity and industry, that they fuffered no great lofs of men. The wretched Indians were the victims of their own illconcerted policy. A great multitude of people, fhut up in the mountainous part of the country, without any food but the fpontaneous productions of the earth, foon felt the utmoft diftreffes of famine. This brought on contagious diseases; and, in the course of a few months, more than a third part of the inhabitants of the island perished, after experiencing mifery in all its various forms.

But while Columbus was eftablishing the foundations of the Spanish grandeur in the New World, his enemies laboured with unwearied affiduity to deprive him of the glory and rewards, which by his fervices and fufferings he was intitled to enjoy. The hardships unavoidable in a new settlement, the calamities occafioned by an unhealthy climate, the difafters attending a voyage in unknown feas, were all reprefented as the effects of his restless and inconfiderate ambition. His prudent attention to preferve difcipline and subordination was denominated excefs of rigour; the punishments which he inflicted upon the mutinous and diforderly were imputed to cruelty. These accufations gained fuch credit in a jealous court, that a commiffioner was appointed to repair to Hifpaniola, and to inspect into the conduct of Columbus. By the recommendation of his enemies, Aguado, a groom of the bed-chamber, was the perfon to whom this important truft was committed. But in this choice they seem to have been more influenced by the obfequious attachment of the man to their intereft, than by his capacity for the station. Puffed up with fuch fudden elevation, Aguado difplayed, in the exercife of this office, all the frivolous felf-importance, and acted with all the difgufting infolence, which are natural to little minds, when raised to unexpected dignity, or employed in functions to which they are not equal. By listening with eagerness to every accufation against Columbus, and encouraging not only the malcontent Spaniards, but even the Indians, to produce their grievances, real or imaginary, he fomented the spirit of diffention in the island, without establishing any regulation of public utility, or that tended to redrefs the many wrongs, with the odium of which he wished to load the admiral's administration. As Columbus felt fenfibly how humiliating his fituation muft be, if he fhould remain in that country while fuch a partial inspector observed his motions, and controuled his jurifdiction, he took the refolution of returning to Spain, in order to lay a full account of all his tranfactions, particularly with refpect to the points in difpute between him and his adverfaries, before Ferdinand and Ifabella, from whofe juftice and dif

cernment

fcernment he expected an equal and a favourable decifion. He committed the administration of affairs, during his abfence, in one thousand four hundred and ninety-fix, to Don Bartholomew his brother, with the title of Adelantado, or Lieutenant Governor. By a choice lefs fortunate, and which proved the fource of many calamities to the colony, he appointed Francis Roldan chief juftice, with very extenfive powers. In returning to Europe, Columbus held a courfe different from that which he had taken in his former voyage. He fteered almost due east from Hifpaniola, in the parallel of twenty-two degrees of latitude; as experience had not yet difcovered the more certain and expeditious method of ftretching to the north, in order to fall in with the fouth-weft winds. By this ill-advifed choice, which, in the infancy of navigation between the New and Old Worlds, can hardly be imputed to the admiral as a defect in naval skill, he was exposed to infinite fatigue and danger, in a perpetual ftruggle with the trade-winds, which blow without variation from the east between the tropics. Notwithstanding the almost infuperable difficulties of fuch a navigation, he perfifted in his courfe with his ufual patience and firmnefs, but made fo little way, that he was three months without feeing land. At length his provifions began to fail, the crew was reduced to the fcanty allowance of fix ounces of bread a-day for each perfon. The admiral fared no better than the meaneft failor. But, even in this extreme diftrefs, he retained the humanity which diftinguishes his character, and refused to comply with the earnest folicitations of his crew, fome of whom propofed to feed upon the Indian prifoners whom they were carrying over, and others infifted to throw them over-board, in order to leffen the consumption of their small stock. He reprefented that they were human beings, reduced by a common calamity to the fame condition with themselves, and intitled to fhare an equal fate. His authority and remonstrances diffipated thofe wild ideas fuggested by defpair. Nor had they time to recur, as they came foon within fight of the coaft of Spain, when all their fears and fufferings ended.

Columbus appeared at court with the modest but determined confidence of a man confcious not only of integrity, but of having performed great fervices. Ferdinand and Isabella, ashamed of their own facility in lending too favourable an ear to frivolous or ill-founded accufations, received him with fuch diftinguifhed marks of refpect, as covered his enemies with fhame. Their cenfures and calumnies were no more heard of at that juncture. The gold, the pearls, the cotton, and other commodities of value which Columbus produced, feemed fully to refute what the mal-contents had propagated with refpect to the poverty of the

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