But whether Columbus or others were in power, the miseries of the Indians went on. Bovadillo, the governor who superseded Columbus, and loaded him with irons, only bestowed allotments of Indians with a more liberal hand, to ingratiate himself with the fierce adventurers who filled the island. Raging with the quenchless thirst of gold, these wretches drove the poor Indians in crowds to the mountains, and compelled them to labour so mercilessly in the mines, that they melted away as rapidly as snow in the sun. It is true that the atrocities thus committed reaching the ears of Isabella, instructions were from time to time sent out, declaring the Indians free subjects, and enjoining mercy towards them; but like all instructions of the sort sent so far from home, they were resisted and set aside. The Indians, ever and anon, stung with despair, rose against their oppressors, but it was only to perish by the sword instead of the mine—they were pursued as rebels, their dwellings razed from the earth, and their caziques, when taken, hanged as malefactors. In vain the simple race Kneeled to the iron sceptre of their grace, Or with weak arms their fiery vengeance braved; They came, they saw, they conquered, they enslaved, And they destroyed! The generous heart they broke; They crushed the timid neck beneath the yoke; Where’er to battle marched their fell array, The sword of conquest ploughed resistless way; Where’er from cruel toil they sought repose, Around the fires of devastation rose. The Indian as he turned his head in flight, Beheld his cottage flaming through the night, And, mid the shrieks of murder on the wind, Heard the mute bloodhound’s death-step close behind. The conquest o’er, the valiant in their graves, The wretched remnant dwindled into slaves; Condemned in pestilential cells to pine, Delving for gold amidst the gloomy mine. The sufferer, sick of life-protracting breath, Inhaled with joy the fire-damp blast of death,— Condemned to fell the mountain palm on high, That cast its shadow to the evening sky, Ere the tree trembled to his feeble stroke, The woodman languished, and his heart-strings broke; Condemned in torrid noon, with palsied hand, To urge the slow plough o’er the obdurate land, The labourer, smitten by the sun’s fierce ray, A corpse along the unfinished furrow lay. O’erwhelmed at length with ignominious toil, Mingling their barren ashes with the soil, Down to the dust the Charib people past, Like autumn foliage withering in the blast; The whole race sunk beneath the oppressor’s rod, And left a blank amongst the works of God. _Montgomery._