One is nevertheless grateful for these references, since they commemorate the Admiral's unfailing loyalty to those who shared his hardships, and his unwearied efforts to see that they received what was due to them.

Pleasant also are the evidences of warm family affection in those simple words of brotherly love, and the affecting advice to Diego that he should love his brother Ferdinand as Christopher loved Bartholomew.

It is a pleasant oasis in this dreary, sordid wailing after thirds and tenths and eighths.
Good Diego Mendez, that honourable gentleman, was evidently also at Court at this time, honestly striving, we may be sure, to say a good word for the Admiral.
Some time after this letter was written, and before the writing of the next, news reached Seville of the death of Queen Isabella.

For ten years her kind heart had been wrung by many sorrows.

Her mother had died in 1496; the next year her only son and heir to the crown had followed; and within yet another year had died her favourite daughter, the Queen of Portugal.