THE OPEN GATE
Dogged continually by the spite and jealousy of his enemies, Columbus met with the most shameful insults, and judged guilty by an ignorant commissioner deputed by the Crown to try his case, was actually sent back to Spain loaded with cruel fetters. Not with the will of the monarchs of Spain was the great Admiral thus dishonoured; Isabella wept tears of bitter regret as she heard how her agent had treated this man who, as an old writer says, "had he lived in the days of ancient Greece or Rome, would have had statues raised and temples and divine honours dedicated to him as to a divinity." Yet though the generous Queen lavished "especial kindness and good-will" on the discoverer, he was not restored to his position of authority in Hispaniola, where under the new and horrible system of repartimientos the Indians were wasting away by hundreds. The tender soul of Isabella bled at the story of their sufferings. Resolving at once to supersede the commissioner, she appointed a new governor named Ovando, and decreed that all Indians were free as her own subjects, and to be treated as true and faithful vassals of the Crown. Deprived of his command in Hispaniola, Columbus turned his thoughts to schemes for fresh discovery. To find in the New World, which he still supposed to be part of Asia, a strait joining the Atlantic to the Indian ocean was his all-consuming desire. What a glorious achievement to open a water-way to the jewelled East where art and commerce reigned supreme! His New World had been dubbed by treasure-seekers "a land of vanity and delusion," a grievous disappointment to the monarchs
