Then a petition was sent to Charles V, for leave to carry the coffin and the body to San Domingo, that it might be buried in the larger chapel of the cathedral of that city.

To this the emperor consented, in a decree signed June 2, 1537.

It is not known how soon the removal to San Domingo was really made, but it took place before many years.
Mr.Harrisse quotes from a manuscript authority to show, that when William Penn besieged the city of San Domingo in 1655, all the bodies buried under the cathedral were withdrawn from view, lest the heretics should profane them, and that "the old Admiral's" body was treated like the rest.
Mr.Harrisse calls to mind the fact that the earthquake of the nineteenth of May, 1673, demolished the cathedral in part, and the tombs which it contained.

He says, "the ruin of the colony, the climate, weather, and carelessness all contributed to the loss from sight and the forgetfulness of the bones of Columbus, mingled with the dust of his descendants"; and Mr.Harrisse does not believe that any vestige of them was ever found afterwards, in San Domingo or anywhere else.

This remark, from the person who has given such large attention to the subject, is interesting.