It seems that by this time the enemies of Columbus, despairing to complete his overthrow by groundless insinuations of malconduct, had taken the more effectual method of exciting the jealousy of their sovereigns. From the promising samples of gold and other valuable commodities brought from America, they took occasion to represent to the king and queen that the prodigious wealth and extent of the countries he had discovered would soon throw such power into the hands of the viceroy, that he would trample on the royal authority and bid defiance to the Spanish power. These arguments were well calculated for the cold and suspicious temper of Ferdinand; and they must have had some effect upon the mind of Isabella. The consequence was the appointment of Bovadilla, the inveterate enemy of Columbus, to take the government from his hands. This first tyrant of the Spanish nation in America began his administration by ordering Columbus to be put in chains on board of a ship, and sending him prisoner to Spain. By relaxing all discipline he introduced disorder and licentiousness thro the colony. He subjected the unhappy natives to a most miserable servitude, and apportioned them out in large numbers among his adherents. Under this severe treatment perished in a short time many thousands of those innocent people. Columbus was carried in his fetters to the Spanish court, where the king and queen either feigned or felt a sufficient regret at the conduct of Bovadilla towards their illustrious prisoner. He was not only released from confinement; he was treated with all imaginable respect. But, altho the king endeavored to expiate the offence by censuring and recalling Bovadilla, yet we may judge of his sincerity from his appointing Nicholas de Ovando, another well known enemy of Columbus, to succeed in the government; and from his ever after refusing to reinstate Columbus, or to fulfil any of the conditions on which the discoveries had been undertaken. After two years of solicitation for this or some other employment, he at length obtained a squadron of four small vessels to attempt new discoveries. He then set out, with the enthusiasm of a young adventurer, in quest of what was always his favorite object, a passage into the South Sea, by which he might sail to India. He touched at Hispaniola, where Ovando the governor refused him admittance on shore, even to take shelter during a hurricane, the prognostics of which his experience had taught him to discern. By putting into a creek he rode out the storm, and then bore away for the continent. He spent several months, the most boisterous of the year, in exploring the coast round the gulph of Mexico, in hopes of finding the intended navigation to India. At length he was shipwrecked, and driven ashore on the island of Jamaica.