To their honour, Ferdinand and Isabella thus replied: "As regards this matter, it is suspended for the present, until there come some other way of doing it there, and let the admiral write what he thinks of this." This is rather a confused answer, as often happens, when a proposition from a valued friend or servant is disapproved of, but has to be rejected kindly.

The Catholic sovereigns would have been very glad to have received some money from the Indies: money was always welcome to King Ferdinand; the purchase of wine, seeds, and cattle for the colonists had hitherto proved anything but a profitable outlay; the prospect of conversion was probably dear to the hearts of both these princes, certainly to one of them: but still this proposition for the establishment of slavery was wisely and magnanimously set aside.
FORT ST.

THOMAS FOUNDED.
While Antonio de Torres was absent from Hispaniola, laying these propositions before Los Reyes, Columbus was busy about the affairs of the colony, which were in a most distracted state.

Scant fare and hard work were having their effect; sickness pervaded the whole armament; and men of all ranks and stations, hidalgoes, people of the court and ecclesiastics, were obliged to labour manually under regulations strictly enforced.

The rage and vexation of these men, many of whom had come out with the notion of finding gold ready for them on the sea shore, may be imagined; and complaints of the admiral's harsh way of dealing with those under him (probably no harsher than was absolutely necessary to save them), now took their rise, and pursued him ever after to his ruin.