much he gives me, the increase of his exalted dominions and revenue will be in the proportion of 100 to 1, and that there is no comparison between what has been done and what is to be done.  The sending of a Bishop to Espanola must be delayed until I speak to his Highness.  It must not be as in the other cases when it was thought to mend matters and they were spoiled.  There have been some cold days here and they have caused me great fatigue and fatigue me now.  Commend me to the favour of the Lord Adelantado.  May our Lord guard and bless you and your brother.  Give my regards to Carbajal and Jeronimo.  Diego Mendez will carry a full pouch there.  I believe that the affair of which you wrote can be very easily managed.  The vessels from the Indies have not arrived from Lisbon.  They brought a great deal of gold, and none for me.  So great a mockery was never seen, for I left there 60,000 pesos smelted.  His Highness should not allow so great an affair to be ruined, as is now taking place.  He now sends to the Governor a new provision.  I do not know what it is about.  I expect letters each day.  Be very careful about expenditures, for it is necessary.

     “Done January 18. 
     “Your father who loves you more than himself.

There is playful reference here to Fonseca, with whom Columbus was evidently now reconciled; and he was to be buttonholed and made to read the Admiral’s letter to the Pope.  Diego Mendez is about to start, and is to make a “long statement”; and in the meantime the Admiral will write as many long letters as he has time for.  Was there no friend at hand, I wonder, with wit enough to tell the Admiral that every word he wrote about his grievances was sealing his doom, so far as the King was concerned?  No human being could have endured with patience this continuous heavy firing at long range to which the Admiral subjected his friends at Court; every post that arrived was loaded with a shrapnel of grievances, the dull echo of which must have made the ears of those who heard it echo with weariness.  Things were evidently humming in Espanola; large cargoes of negroes had been sent out to take the place of the dead natives, and under the harsh driving of Ovando the mines were producing heavily.  The vessels that arrived from the Indies brought a great deal of gold; “but none for me.”

Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO, February 5, 1505.

“Very dear son,—­Diego Mendez left here Monday, the 3rd of this month.  After his departure I talked with Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer of this letter, who is going yonder, where he is called in regard to matters of navigation.  He was always desirous of pleasing me.  He is a very honourable man.  Fortune has been adverse to him as it has been to many others.  His labours have not profited him as much as reason demands.  He goes for me, and is very desirous