event--which always
justifies true manliness--proved the sagacity of this proud demeanour.
Fonseca was baulked of his gratification. The clumsy Bobadilla had
overdone the business. The sight of the Admiral's stately and venerable
figure in chains, as he passed through the streets of Cadiz, on a
December day of that year 1500, awakened a popular outburst of sympathy
for him and indignation at his persecutors. While on the ship he had
written or dictated a beautiful and touching letter[603] to a lady of
whom the queen was fond, the former nurse of the Infante, whose untimely
death, three years since, his mother was still mourning. This letter
reached the court at Granada, and was read to the queen before she had
heard of Bobadilla's performances from any other quarter. A courier was
sent in all haste to Cadiz, with orders that the brothers should at once
be released, and with a letter to the Admiral, inviting him to court and
enclosing an order for money to cover his expenses. The scene in the
Alhambra, when Columbus arrived, is one of the most touching in history.
Isabella received him with tears in her eyes, and then this
much-enduring old man, whose proud and masterful spirit had so long been
proof against all wrongs and insults, broke down. He threw himself at
the feet of the sovereigns in an agony of tears and sobs.[604]

[Footnote 602: Las Casas, _Hist. de las Indias_, tom. ii. p.
501; F. Columbus, _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. lxxxv.
Ferdinand adds that he had often seen these fetters hanging in
his father's room.]

[Footnote 603: It is given in full in Las Casas, _op. cit._
tom. ii. pp. 502-510.]

[Footnote 604: Herrera, _Historia_, dec. i. lib. iv. cap. 10.]

[Sidenote: How far were the sovereigns responsible for Bobadilla?]

How far the sovereigns should be held responsible for the behaviour of
their agent is not altogether easy to determine. The appointment of such
a creature as Bobadilla was a sad blunder, but one such as is liable to
be made under any government. Fonseca was very powerful at court, and
Bobadilla never would have dared to proceed as he did if he had not
known that the bishop would support him. Indeed, from the indecent haste
with which he went about his work, without even the pretence of a
judicial inquiry, it is probable that he started with private
instructions from that quarter. But, while Fonseca had some of the
wisdom al