who had at last realized the "good hope" of reaching India by way of the Cape, and returned to Portugal, laden with glory and riches in 1499.
It was now 1502, ten years after the discovery of America, when Columbus sailed on his fourth and last voyage. He had four ships, the Capitana, Santiago de Palos, Gallego, and Biscaina. The largest of these was but of seventy tons burden, the smallest of fifty, and all were worn and old. The crews numbered a hundred and fifty men and boys, there were provisions for two years, and both cannon and trinkets for winning gold from the Indians. Bartholomew Columbus was captain of one of the caravels, with the title of Adelantado, and with his father on the flagship was Christopher Columbus's thirteen-year-old son, Ferdinand. When he grew up, Ferdinand Columbus wrote a biography of his father, containing the best account we have of this voyage.
They sailed from Cadiz on the ninth of May, 1502, took on wood and water at the Canaries, and put in at Santo Domingo, to exchange one of the ships for another, "because it was a bad sailer, and, besides, could carry no sail, but the side would lie almost under water." But Ovando, the governor of the Spanish colony there, was an enemy of Columbus, and refused to let him have a new ship, or even to take refuge in the harbor from a threatening storm. Ovando himself was just setting forth for Spain, in a great fleet of his own, laden with much gold that had been cruelly wrung from the poor Indians, including one nugget so large that the Spaniards had used it for a table. Columbus warned Ovando that a storm was coming, and was laughed at for his pains.
