his life was passed in literary pursuits, and he died in Valladolid in 1557 at the age of seventy-nine. From this account it can easily be seen that whatever he wrote with regard to the affairs of Tierra-Firme must be received with caution, as he was far from being an impartial observer.[685] * * * * * The first document with regard to the final and successful settlement of Tierra-Firme is the _cédula_ of June 9, 1508, in which Diego de Nicuesa and Alonso de Ojeda were commissioned governors of Veragua and Urabá for four years.[686] Juan de la Cosa was confirmed in his office of _alguacil mayor de Urabá_ on the seventeenth of the same month;[687] and the Governor of Española was directed to give him a house for his wife and children, together with a sufficient number of Indians.[688] As we have seen, the two governors were prevented by Diego Columbus from taking the well-to-do class of colonists from Española upon which they had counted. This statement is made on the authority of Nicuesa’s lieutenant, Rodrigo de Colmenares, who afterward deserted Nicuesa at Antigua, and went to Spain in 1512 in company with Caicedo to report the existence of a new sea. While there, either on this or a later visit, he presented a memorial to the King _sobre el desgraciado suceso de Diego de Nicuesa_.[689] The allegations of Colmenares are borne out by two _cédulas_ of Feb. 28, 1510;[690] while a _cédula_ of June 15, 1510, declared that the Gulf of Urabá belonged to the province which had been assigned to Ojeda.[691] Nicuesa was informed of this decision in a _cédula_ of the same date.[692] There are four more _cédulas_ of July 25, 1511, in two of which the Admiral Diego Columbus and the treasurer Pasamonte are ordered to assist the unhappy governors, while the other two were written to inform those governors that such orders had been sent.[693] The fate of neither of them, however, is certain. The judges of appeal in Española were ordered to inquire into the crimes, _délits_, and excesses of Ojeda, Talavera, and companions.[694] Talavera and his associates were hanged in Jamaica in 1511, and Ojeda’s deposition was taken in 1513, and again in 1515 in Santo Domingo, in the celebrated lawsuit; but beyond this his further movements are not accurately known.[695] As for Nicuesa, he too underwent shipwreck and starvation; and when at last fortune seemed about to smile upon him, he was cruelly cast out by the mutinous settlers at Darien; and although a story was current that he had been wrecked on Cuba and had there left inscribed on a tree, “Here died the unfortunate Nicuesa,” yet the best opinion is that he and his seventeen faithful followers perished at sea.[696] * * * * *