She had ordered that they should receive payment for their labour: she would have found that all they received was a mockery of wages, just enough to purchase once, perhaps, in the course of the year, some childish trifles from Castile.

She had always directed that they should have kind treatment and proper maintenance: she would have seen them literally watching under the tables of their masters, to catch the crumbs which fell there.

She would have beheld the Indian labouring at the mine under cruel buffetings, his family, neglected, perishing, or enslaved.

She would have marked him on his return, after eight months of dire toil, enter a place which knew him not, or a household that could only sorrow over the gaunt creature who had returned to them, and mingle their sorrows with his; or, still more sad, she would have seen Indians who had been brought from far distant homes, linger at the mines, too hopeless, or too careless, to return.
PETITIONS OF COLUMBUS; INJUSTICE OF THE KING.
Turning from what might have been seen by Queen Isabella, had her departing gaze pierced to the outskirts of her dominions, we have to record the closing scene of the strange eventful history of Columbus, who did not long survive his benefactress.

Ever since his return from his fourth voyage to the Indies, he had done little else than memorialize, and petition, and negotiate about his rights.