CHAP.
I.]
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
15
in this appointment by a mere desire to aggrandize his family. He felt the importance of his brother's assistance in the present critical state of the colony, but that this co-operation would be inefficient unless it bore the stamp of high official authority. In fact, during the few months that he had been absent, the whole island had become a scene of discord and violence, in conse足 quence of the neglect, or rather the flagrant violation, of those rules which he had prescribed for the maintenance of its tran足 quillity. A brief retrospect of the recent affairs of the colony is here necessary to explain their present confusion. It will exhibit one of the many instances in which Columbus was doomed to reap the fruits of the evil seed sown by his adversaries.