In the meantime hope of assistance deferred, their crowded quarters on shipboard, and want of occupation and exercise began to have their effects upon the health and spirits of the little settlement at Santa Gloria. Discontent led to open rebellion. The brothers Porras (Francisco the captain of the _Santiago_, and Diego the accountant) led the revolt, followed by Juan Sanchez, the pilot Ledesma, Barba the gunner, and some fifty others, who were moved to rebellion by Porras’s false representations. On January 2, 1504, when Columbus was confined in bed by gout, Francisco de Porras burst into his small cabin and accused the admiral of having no intention of returning to Spain. Remonstrances were useless, and, to quote the “Historie”: “Porras replied, that it was not now time to talk, and that the Admiral must either embark immediately or stay there by himself; and turning his back upon the Admiral he called out in a loud voice, ‘I am bound for Spain with those that are willing to follow me.’ On this all his followers who were present shouted out, ‘We will go with you! we will go with you!’ and running about in great confusion crying, ‘Let them die! let them die! For Spain! for Spain!’ while others called on the captain for his orders, they took possession of the poop, forecastle, and round tops. “Though the Admiral was then so lame of the gout that he could not stand, he yet endeavoured to rise and come out upon deck on hearing this uproar; but two or three worthy persons, his attendants, laid hold upon him and forcibly laid him again in bed, that the mutineers might not murder him; they then ran to his brother, who was going out courageously with a half-pike, and wresting it from his hands, they forced him into the cabin beside the admiral, desiring Captain Porras to go where he liked, and not commit a crime for which they might all suffer; that he might be satisfied in meeting no opposition to his going away, but if he killed the Admiral he must lay his account with being severely punished for what could not possibly be of the least benefit to his views.” The rebels seized some stores and ten canoes which Columbus had purchased at Maima, a native village near where the caravels were grounded, and which perhaps stood by Mammee Bay, and made several futile attempts to follow Mendez to Hispaniola; proving themselves such wretches, it is said, as to force into the sea when the waves ran high, in order to lighten the canoes, those poor Indians whom they had taken with them to navigate their canoes.