Columbus and his brothers reach Granada, where the Queen consoles him

… they felt great sorrow that he came a prisoner and ill treated, and ordered at once that he be released, and, as I heard said, they ordered him provided with money with which to come to the court, and even that the money was 2,000 ducats; they ordered it written to him to come to the court, where he and his brothers arrived on the 17th of December, and they received them very kindly, showing compassion for his adversity and toils, giving them all the consolation they could give at the time, especially to the Admiral, assuring him that his imprisonment had not proceeded from their will, and with very loving and effective words they promised him that they would have his wrongs undone and remedied, and that in all and through all his privileges and favors that they had made him would be kept for him; and in this the most serene Queen was the one who excelled in consoling him and assuring him of her sorrow, because, in truth, she was always the one who favored and defended him more than the King, and so the Admiral had in her chiefly his hope. …