next day to the admiral, highly extolling Caravajals discourse; and saying that since it had failed to dissuade those people from their wicked designs, nothing less would prevail than granting them all they demanded, he found them so resolute.  He added that he looked upon it as next to certain that most of the people who were with the admiral would go over to the rebels, and though he might rely on the fidelity of the men of honour and his own servants, yet these would not be able to withstand so great a number.  The admiral already knew this by experience, having made a muster of all who were fit to bear arms at the time when Roldan was near St Domingo that he might be ready to oppose the rebels if necessary; and so many of the people feigned themselves sick or lame that only seventy appeared on the muster, of whom there were not more than forty in whom he could confide.

Hearing of this muster and considering it a threat to proceed to extremities against them, on the seventeenth of October 1498, Roldan and the other chiefs of the mutineers sent a letter to the admiral subscribed by them all, saying, That they had withdrawn themselves from the lieutenant to save their lives, he having a design to destroy them.  That they being his lordships servants, whose coming they had anxiously waited for, as of one who would look upon what they had done as in compliance with their duty and as good service; that they had hindered their adherents from doing any harm to any that belonged to his lordship, as they might easily have done.  That since he was now come and was so far from thinking as they did, that he insisted upon taking revenge and punishing them; therefore, that they might be at liberty to carry on their proceedings and to do with honour what they had undertaken, they now took leave of him and of his service.  Before this letter was delivered to the admiral, he had transmitted proposals for an accommodation with Roldan.

In his conference with Roldan, Caravajal represented the confidence which the admiral had always reposed in him, and the good account which he had given to their Catholic majesties of the conduct of the chief justice; and said that the admiral had refrained from writing, lest his letter might have been seen by some of the common people, and have occasioned prejudice to the negociation; and therefore, he had sent a person in whom Roldan knew that the admiral placed much confidence, so that he might regard what was said by him and Ballester, as equally valid and binding as if under the hand and seal of the admiral, and therefore, he might consider what was proper to be done, and he should find him ready to comply with whatever was reasonable.

On the 18th of October, the admiral ordered five of his ships to depart for Spain, and sent a detailed account by them to their majesties of all the affairs of the colony; saying, that he had detained the ships till then under the belief that Roldan and his confederates would have gone home in them, as they had at first given out; and that the other three ships which he kept, were fitting out to go under the command of his brother, to prosecute the discovery of the continent of Paria, and to form an establishment for carrying on the fishery of pearls, a sample of which he now sent to their majesties by Arogial.