is five-hundred-dollar vessel was
in a bad condition and unseaworthy; the authorities decided that this
point must be investigated, so several persons were named to examine the
boat and report on her condition. They did so, and promptly reported that
the vessel was not merely unseaworthy, but was in such a state that no
repairs would make her so, and that the only course was to dismantle her.
Thus Las Casas beheld his five hundred dollars vanish and himself a
fixture in Hispaniola.

Meanwhile Ocampo had reached the Pearl Coast and, feigning to come
directly from Spain with merchandise and to be entirely ignorant of the
murder of Ojeda and the friars, he succeeded in luring the cacique Gil
Gonzalez close to his ship, when a naked sailor dived overboard, grappled
with the cacique in his canoe and finally stabbed and killed him. A
landing was then made and the country raided with the usual accompaniment
of murders, torturings, and capturing of the natives, many of whom were
carried on board the vessels and sent back to Hispaniola, to be sold as
slaves. Ocampo, with others of his followers who remained behind, founded
a town, half a league up the Cumana River, which he named New Toledo.

The arrival of the slave cargo at Hispaniola where Las Casas was still
engaged in altercations with the authorities, threw him into a terrible
rage. He protested vehemently before the Audiencia against the deliberate
and open violation of the royal commands, whose contents had been publicly
proclaimed, and he threatened to return forthwith to Spain and lay the
case before the King, from whom he would obtain the punishment of the
authors of the outrage and their condemnation to pay all the expenses of
Ocampo's armada, which had been illegally charged to the Royal treasury.

Nobody doubted that he was capable of executing his threat, and, since it
was known that he enjoyed the protection of the all-powerful Flemings and
was something of a favourite with the young King himself, the members of
the Consulta and some of the principal men in the colony decided, after
many discussions, that it would be well to appease the clerigo's wrath and
come to some arrangement with him for their mutual benefit. It was then
proposed to form a company, in which there should be twenty-four
shareholders, each of whom should contribute an identical sum and derive
an equal profit from the undertaking on the Pearl Coast. Six of the
shares should be assigned to t