CHAPTER XVI.

APPLICATION OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AT THE SPANISH COURT.

1492.

Early Discoveries of the Portuguese.--Of the Spaniards.--Columbus.--His Application at the Castilian Court.--Rejected.--Negotiations Resumed.-- Favorable Disposition of the Queen.--Arrangement with Columbus.--He Sails on his First Voyage.--Indifference to the Enterprise.--Acknowledgments due to Isabella.

While Ferdinand and Isabella were at Santa Fe, the capitulation was signed, that opened the way to an extent of empire, compared with which their recent conquests, and indeed all their present dominions, were insignificant. The extraordinary intellectual activity of the Europeans in the fifteenth century, after the torpor of ages, carried them forward to high advancement in almost every department of science, but especially nautical, whose surprising results have acquired for the age, the glory of being designated as peculiarly that of maritime discovery. This was eminently favored by the political condition of modern Europe. Under the Roman empire, the traffic with the east naturally centred in Rome, the commercial capital of the west. After the dismemberment of the empire, it continued to be conducted principally through the channel of the Italian ports, whence it was diffused over the remoter regions of Christendom. But these countries, which had now risen from the rank of subordinate provinces to that of separate independent states, viewed with jealousy this monopoly of the Italian cities, by means of which these latter were rapidly advancing beyond them in power and opulence. This was especially the case with Portugal and Castile, [1] which, placed on the remote frontiers of the European continent, were far removed from the great routes of Asiatic intercourse; while this disadvantage was not compensated by such an extent of territory, as secured consideration to some other of the European states, equally unfavorably situated for commercial purposes with themselves. Thus circumstanced, the two nations of Castile and Portugal were naturally led to turn their eyes on the great ocean which washed their western borders, and to seek in its hitherto unexplored recesses for new domains, and if possible strike out some undiscovered track towards the opulent regions of the east.

The spirit of maritime enterprise was fomented, and greatly facilitated in its operation, by the invention of the astrolabe, and the important discovery of the polarity of the magnet, whose first application to the purposes of navigation on an extended scale may be referred to the fifteenth century. [2] The Portuguese were the first to enter on the brilliant path of nautical discovery, which they pursued under the infant Don Henry with such activity, that, before the middle of the fifteenth century, they had penetrated as far as Cape de Verd, doubling many a fearful headland, which had shut in the timid navigator of former days; until at length, in 1486, they descried the lofty promontory which terminates Africa on the south, and which, hailed by King John the Second, under whom it was discovered, as the harbinger of the long-sought passage to the east, received the cheering appellation of the Cape of Good Hope.

The Spaniards, in the mean while, did not languish in the career of maritime enterprise. Certain adventurers from the northern provinces of Biscay and Guipuscoa, in 1393, had made themselves masters of one of the smallest of the group of islands, supposed to be the Fortunate Isles of the ancients, since known as the Canaries. Other private adventurers from Seville extended their conquests over these islands in the beginning of the following century. These were completed in behalf of the crown under Ferdinand and Isabella, who equipped several fleets for their reduction, which at length terminated in 1495 with that of Teneriffe. [3] From the commencement of their reign, Ferdinand and Isabella had shown an earnest solicitude for the encouragement of commerce and nautical science, as is evinced by a variety of regulations which, however imperfect, from the misconception of the true principles of trade in that day, are sufficiently indicative of the dispositions of the government. [4] Under them, and indeed under their predecessors as far back as Henry the Third, a considerable traffic had been carried on with the western coast of Africa, from which gold dust and slaves were imported into the city of Seville. The annalist of that city notices the repeated interference of Isabella in behalf of these unfortunate beings, by ordinances tending to secure them a more equal protection of the laws, or opening such social indulgences as might mitigate the hardships of their condition. A misunderstanding gradually arose between the subjects of Castile and Portugal, in relation to their respective rights of discovery and commerce on the African coast, which promised a fruitful source of collision between the two crowns; but which was happily adjusted by an article in the treaty of 1479, that terminated the war of the succession. By this it was settled, that the right of traffic and of discovery on the western coast of Africa should be exclusively reserved to the Portuguese, who in their turn should resign all claims on the Canaries to the crown of Castile. The Spaniards, thus excluded from further progress to the south, seemed to have no other opening left for naval adventure than the hitherto untravelled regions of the great western ocean. Fortunately, at this juncture, an individual appeared among them, in the person of Christopher Columbus, endowed with capacity for stimulating them to this heroic enterprise, and conducting it to a glorious issue. [5]

This extraordinary man was a native of Genoa, of humble parentage, though perhaps honorable descent. [6] He was instructed in his early youth at Pavia, where he acquired a strong relish for the mathematical sciences, in which he subsequently excelled. At the age of fourteen, he engaged in a seafaring life, which he followed with little intermission till 1470; when, probably little more than thirty years of age, [7] he landed in Portugal, the country to which adventurous spirits from all parts of the world then resorted, as the great theatre of maritime enterprise. After his arrival, he continued to make voyages to the then known parts of the world, and, when on shore, occupied himself with the construction and sale of charts and maps; while his geographical researches were considerably aided by the possession of papers belonging to an eminent Portuguese navigator, a deceased relative of his wife. Thus stored with all that nautical science in that day could supply, and fortified by large practical experience, the reflecting mind of Columbus was naturally led to speculate on the existence of some other land beyond the western waters; and he conceived the possibility of reaching the eastern shores of Asia, whose provinces of Zipango and Cathay were emblazoned in such gorgeous colors in the narratives of Mandeville and the Poli, by a more direct and commodious route than that which traversed the eastern continent. [8]

The existence of land beyond the Atlantic, which was not discredited by some of the most enlightened ancients, [9] had become matter of common speculation at the close of the fifteenth century; when maritime adventure was daily disclosing the mysteries of the deep, and bringing to light new regions, that had hitherto existed only in fancy. A proof of this popular belief occurs in a curious passage of the "Morgante Maggiore" of the Florentine poet Palci, a man of letters, but not distinguished for scientific attainments beyond his day. [10] The passage is remarkable, independently of the cosmographical knowledge it implies, for its allusion to phenomena in physical science, not established till more than a century later. The Devil, alluding to the vulgar superstition respecting the pillars of Hercules, thus addresses his companion Rinaldo:

"Know that this theory is false; his bark The daring mariner shall urge far o'er The western wave, a smooth and level plain, Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. Man was in ancient days of grosser mould, And Hercules might blush to learn how far Beyond the limits he had vainly set, The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way. Men shall descry another hemisphere, Since to one common centre all things tend; So earth, by curious mystery divine Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres. At our antipodes are cities, states, And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. But see, the Sun speeds on his western path To glad the nations with expected light." [11]

Columbus's hypothesis rested on much higher ground than mere popular belief. What indeed was credulity with the vulgar, and speculation with the learned, amounted in his mind to a settled practical conviction, that made him ready to peril life and fortune on the result of the experiment. He was fortified still further in his conclusions by a correspondence with the learned Italian Toscanelli, who furnished him with a map of his own projection, in which the eastern coast of Asia was delineated opposite to the western frontier of Europe. [12]

Filled with lofty anticipations of achieving a discovery, which would settle a question of such moment, so long involved in obscurity, Columbus submitted the theory on which he had founded his belief in the existence of a western route to King John the Second, of Portugal. Here he was doomed to encounter for the first time the embarrassments and mortifications, which so often obstruct the conceptions of genius, too sublime for the age in which they are formed. After a long and fruitless negotiation, and a dishonorable attempt on the part of the Portuguese to avail themselves clandestinely of his information, he quitted Lisbon in disgust, determined to submit his proposals to the Spanish sovereigns, relying on their reputed character for wisdom and enterprise. [13]

The period of his arrival in Spain, being the latter part of 1484, would seem to have been the most unpropitious possible to his design. The nation was then in the heat of the Moorish war, and the sovereigns were unintermittingly engaged, as we have seen, in prosecuting their campaigns, or in active preparation for them. The large expenditure, incident to this, exhausted all their resources; and indeed the engrossing character of this domestic conquest left them little leisure for indulging in dreams of distant and doubtful discovery. Columbus, moreover, was unfortunate in his first channel of communication with the court. He was furnished by Fray Juan Perez de Marchena, guardian of the convent of La Rabida in Andalusia, who had early taken a deep interest in his plans, with an introduction to Fernando de Talavera, prior of Prado, and confessor of the queen, a person high in the royal confidence, and gradually raised through a succession of ecclesiastical dignities to the archiepiscopal see of Granada. He was a man of irreproachable morals, and of comprehensive benevolence for that day, as is shown in his subsequent treatment of the unfortunate Moriscoes. [14] He was also learned; although his learning was that of the cloister, deeply tinctured with pedantry and superstition, and debased by such servile deference even to the errors of antiquity, as at once led him to discountenance everything like innovation or enterprise. [15]

With these timid and exclusive views, Talavera was so far from comprehending the vast conceptions of Columbus, that he seems to have regarded him as a mere visionary, and his hypothesis as involving principles not altogether orthodox. Ferdinand and Isabella, desirous of obtaining the opinion of the most competent judges on the merits of Columbus's theory, referred him to a council selected by Talavera from the most eminent scholars of the kingdom, chiefly ecclesiastics, whose profession embodied most of the science of that day. Such was the apathy exhibited by this learned conclave, and so numerous the impediments suggested by dulness, prejudice, or skepticism, that years glided away before it came to a decision. During this time, Columbus appears to have remained in attendance on the court, bearing arms occasionally in the campaigns, and experiencing from the sovereigns an unusual degree of deference and personal attention; an evidence of which is afforded in the disbursements repeatedly made by the royal order for his private expenses, and in the instructions, issued to the municipalities of the different towns in Andalusia, to supply him gratuitously with lodging and other personal accommodations. [16]

At length, however, Columbus, wearied out by this painful procrastination, pressed the court for a definite answer to his propositions; when he was informed, that the council of Salamanca pronounced his scheme to be "vain, impracticable, and resting on grounds too weak to merit the support of the government." Many in the council, however, were too enlightened to acquiesce in this sentence of the majority. Some of the most considerable persons of the court, indeed, moved by the cogency of Columbus's arguments, and affected by the elevation and grandeur of his views, not only cordially embraced his scheme, but extended their personal intimacy and friendship to him. Such, among others, were the grand cardinal Mendoza, a man whose enlarged capacity and acquaintance with affairs raised him above many of the narrow prejudices of his order, and Deza, archbishop of Seville, a Dominican friar, whose commanding talents were afterwards unhappily perverted in the service of the Holy Office, over which he presided as successor to Torquemada. [17] The authority of these individuals had undoubtedly great weight with the sovereigns, who softened the verdict of the junto, by an assurance to Columbus, that, "although they were too much occupied at present to embark in his undertaking, yet, at the conclusion of the war, they should find both time and inclination to treat with him." Such was the ineffectual result of Columbus's long and painful solicitation; and, far from receiving the qualified assurance of the sovereigns in mitigation of their refusal, he seems to have considered it as peremptory and final. In great dejection of mind, therefore, but without further delay, he quitted the court, and bent his way to the south, with the apparently almost desperate intent of seeking out some other patron to his undertaking. [18]

Columbus had already visited his native city of Genoa, for the purpose of interesting it in his scheme of discovery; but the attempt proved unsuccessful. He now made application, it would seem, to the dukes of Medina Sidonia and Medina Celi, successively, from the latter of whom he experienced much kindness and hospitality; but neither of these nobles, whose large estates lying along the sea-shore had often invited them to maritime adventure, was disposed to assume one which seemed too hazardous for the resources of the crown. Without wasting time in further solicitation, Columbus prepared with a heavy heart to bid adieu to Spain, and carry his proposals to the king of France, from whom he had received a letter of encouragement while detained in Andalusia. [19]

His progress, however, was arrested at the convent of La Rabida, which he visited previous to his departure, by his friend the guardian, who prevailed on him to postpone his journey till another effort had been made to move the Spanish court in his favor. For this purpose the worthy ecclesiastic undertook an expedition in person to the newly erected city of Santa Fe, where the sovereigns lay encamped before Granada. Juan Perez had formerly been confessor of Isabella, and was held in great consideration by her for his excellent qualities. On arriving at the camp, he was readily admitted to an audience, when he pressed the suit of Columbus with all the earnestness and reasoning of which he was capable. The friar's eloquence was supported by that of several eminent persons, whom Columbus during his long residence in the country had interested in his project, and who viewed with sincere regret the prospect of its abandonment. Among these individuals are particularly mentioned Alonso de Quintanilla, comptroller general of Castile, Louis de St. Angel, a fiscal officer of the crown of Aragon, and the marchioness of Moya, the personal friend of Isabella, all of whom exercised considerable influence over her counsels. Their representations, combined with the opportune season of the application, occurring at the moment when the approaching termination of the Moorish war allowed room for interest in other objects, wrought so favorable a change in the dispositions of the sovereigns, that they consented to resume the negotiation with Columbus. An invitation was accordingly sent to him to repair to Santa Fe, and a considerable sum provided for his suitable equipment, and his expenses on the road. [20]

Columbus, who lost no time in availing himself of this welcome intelligence, arrived at the camp in season to witness the surrender of Granada, when every heart, swelling with exultation at the triumphant termination of the war, was naturally disposed to enter with greater confidence on a new career of adventure. At his interview with the king and queen, he once more exhibited the arguments on which his hypothesis was founded. He then endeavored to stimulate the cupidity of his audience, by picturing the realms of Mangi and Cathay, which he confidently expected to reach by this western route, in all the barbaric splendors which had been shed over them by the lively fancy of Marco Polo and other travellers of the Middle Ages; and he concluded with appealing to a higher principle, by holding out the prospect of extending the empire of the Cross over nations of benighted heathen, while he proposed to devote the profits of his enterprise to the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. This last ebullition, which might well have passed for fanaticism in a later day, and given a visionary tinge to his whole project, was not quite so preposterous in an age, in which the spirit of the crusades might be said still to linger, and the romance of religion had not yet been dispelled by sober reason. The more temperate suggestion of the diffusion of the gospel was well suited to affect Isabella, in whose heart the principle of devotion was deeply seated, and who, in all her undertakings, seems to have been far less sensible to the vulgar impulses of avarice or ambition, than to any argument connected, however remotely, with the interests of religion. [21]

Amidst all these propitious demonstrations towards Columbus, an obstacle unexpectedly arose in the nature of his demands, which stipulated for himself and heirs the title and authority of Admiral and Viceroy over all lands discovered by him, with one-tenth of the profits. This was deemed wholly inadmissible. Ferdinand, who had looked with cold distrust on the expedition from the first, was supported by the remonstrances of Talavera, the new archbishop of Granada; who declared, that "such demands savored of the highest degree of arrogance, and would be unbecoming in their Highnesses to grant to a needy foreign adventurer." Columbus, however, steadily resisted every attempt to induce him to modify his propositions. On this ground, the conferences were abruptly broken off, and he once more turned his back upon the Spanish court, resolved rather to forego his splendid anticipations of discovery, at the very moment when the career so long sought was thrown open to him, than surrender one of the honorable distinctions due to his services. This last act is perhaps the most remarkable exhibition in his whole life, of that proud, unyielding spirit, which sustained him through so many years of trial, and enabled him at length to achieve his great enterprise, in the face of every obstacle which man and nature had opposed to it. [22]

The misunderstanding was not suffered to be of long duration. Columbus's friends, and especially Louis de St. Angel, remonstrated with the queen on these proceedings in the most earnest manner. He frankly told her, that Columbus's demands, if high, were at least contingent on success, when they would be well deserved; that, if he failed, he required nothing. He expatiated on his qualifications for the undertaking, so signal as to insure in all probability the patronage of some other monarch, who would reap the fruits of his discoveries; and he ventured to remind the queen, that her present policy was not in accordance with the magnanimous spirit, which had hitherto made her the ready patron of great and heroic enterprise. Far from being displeased, Isabella was moved by his honest eloquence. She contemplated the proposals of Columbus in their true light; and, refusing to hearken any longer to the suggestions of cold and timid counsellors, she gave way to the natural impulses of her own noble and generous heart; "I will assume the undertaking," said she, "for my own crown of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray the expenses of it, if the funds in the treasury shall be found inadequate." The treasury had been reduced to the lowest ebb by the late war, but the receiver, St. Angel, advanced the sums required, from the Aragonese revenues deposited in his hands. Aragon however was not considered as adventuring in the expedition, the charges and emoluments of which were reserved exclusively for Castile. [23]

Columbus, who was overtaken by the royal messenger at a few leagues' distance only from Granada, experienced the most courteous reception on his return to Santa Fe, where a definitive arrangement was concluded with the Spanish sovereigns, April 17th, 1492. By the terms of the capitulation, Ferdinand and Isabella, as lords of the ocean-seas, constituted Christopher Columbus their admiral, viceroy, and governor- general of all such islands and continents as he should discover in the western ocean, with the privilege of nominating three candidates, for the selection of one by the crown, for the government of each of these territories. He was to be vested with exclusive right of jurisdiction over all commercial transactions within his admiralty. He was to be entitled to one-tenth of all the products and profits within the limits of his discoveries, and an additional eighth, provided he should contribute one- eighth part of the expense. By a subsequent ordinance, the official dignities above enumerated were settled on him and his heirs for ever, with the privilege of prefixing the title of Don to their names, which had not then degenerated into an appellation of mere courtesy. [24]

No sooner were the arrangements completed, than Isabella prepared with her characteristic promptness to forward the expedition by the most efficient measures. Orders were sent to Seville and the other ports of Andalusia, to furnish stores and other articles requisite for the voyage, free of duty, and at as low rates as possible. The fleet, consisting of three vessels, was to sail from the little port of Palos in Andalusia, which had been condemned for some delinquency to maintain two caravels for a twelvemonth for the public service. The third vessel was furnished by the admiral, aided, as it would seem, in defraying the charges, by his friend the guardian of La Rabida, and the Pinzons, a family in Palos long distinguished for its enterprise among the mariners of that active community. With their assistance, Columbus was enabled to surmount the disinclination, and indeed open opposition, manifested by the Andalusian mariners to his perilous voyage; so that in less than three months his little squadron was equipped for sea. A sufficient evidence of the extreme unpopularity of the expedition is afforded by a royal ordinance of the 30th of April, promising protection to all persons, who should embark in it, from criminal prosecution of whatever kind, until two months after their return. The armament consisted of two caravels, or light vessels without decks, and a third of larger burden. The total number of persons who embarked amounted to one hundred and twenty; and the whole charges of the crown for the expedition did not exceed seventeen thousand florins, The fleet was instructed to keep clear of the African coast, and other maritime possessions of Portugal. At length, all things being in readiness, Columbus and his whole crew partook of the sacrament, and confessed themselves, after the devout manner of the ancient Spanish voyagers, when engaged in any important enterprise; and on the morning of the 3d of August, 1492, the intrepid navigator, bidding adieu to the Old World, launched forth on that unfathomed waste of waters where no sail had been ever spread before. [25]

It is impossible to peruse the story of Columbus without assigning to him almost exclusively the glory of his great discovery; for, from the first moment of its conception to that of its final execution, he was encountered by every species of mortification and embarrassment, with scarcely a heart to cheer, or a hand to help him. [26] Those more enlightened persons whom, during his long residence in Spain, he succeeded in interesting in his expedition, looked to it probably as the means of solving a dubious problem, with the same sort of vague and skeptical curiosity as to its successful result, with which we contemplate, in our day, an attempt to arrive at the Northwest passage. How feeble was the interest excited, even among those who from their science and situation would seem to have their attention most naturally drawn towards it, may be inferred from the infrequency of allusion to it in the correspondence and other writings of that time, previous to the actual discovery. Peter Martyr, one of the most accomplished scholars of the period, whose residence at the Castilian court must have fully instructed him in the designs of Columbus, and whose inquisitive mind led him subsequently to take the deepest interest in the results of his discoveries, does not, so far as I am aware, allude to him in any part of his voluminous correspondence with the learned men of his time, previous to the first expedition. The common people regarded, not merely with apathy, but with terror, the prospect of a voyage, that was to take the mariner from the safe and pleasant seas which he was accustomed to navigate, and send him roving on the boundless wilderness of waters, which tradition and superstitious fancy had peopled with innumerable forms of horror.

It is true that Columbus experienced a most honorable reception at the Castilian court; such as naturally flowed from the benevolent spirit of Isabella, and her just appreciation of his pure and elevated character. But the queen was too little of a proficient in science to be able to estimate the merits of his hypothesis; and, as many of those, on whose judgment she leaned, deemed it chimerical, it is probable that she never entertained a deep conviction of its truth; at least not enough to warrant the liberal expenditure, which she never refused to schemes of real importance. This is certainly inferred by the paltry amount actually expended on the armament, far inferior to that appropriated to the equipment of two several fleets in the course of the late war for a foreign expedition, as well as to that, with which in the ensuing year she followed up Columbus's discoveries.

But while, on a review of the circumstances, we are led more and more to admire the constancy and unconquerable spirit, which carried Columbus victorious through all the difficulties of his undertaking, we must remember, in justice to Isabella, that, although tardily, she did in fact furnish the resources essential to its execution; that she undertook the enterprise when it had been explicitly declined by other powers, and when probably none other of that age would have been found to countenance it; and that, after once plighting her faith to Columbus, she became his steady friend, shielding him against the calumnies of his enemies, reposing in him the most generous confidence, and serving him in the most acceptable manner, by supplying ample resources for the prosecution of his glorious discoveries. [27]

* * * * *

It is now more than thirty years since the Spanish government intrusted Don Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, one of the most eminent scholars of the country, with the care of exploring the public archives, for the purpose of collecting information relative to the voyages and discoveries of the early Spanish navigators. In 1825, Señor Navarrete gave to the world the first fruits of his indefatigable researches, in two volumes, the commencement of a series, comprehending letters, private journals, royal ordinances, and other original documents, illustrative of the discovery of America. These two volumes are devoted exclusively to the adventures and personal history of Columbus, and must be regarded as the only authentic basis, on which any notice of the great navigator can hereafter rest. Fortunately, Mr. Irving's visit to Spain, at this period, enabled the world to derive the full benefit of Señor Navarrete's researches, by presenting their results in connection with whatever had been before known of Columbus, in the lucid and attractive form, which engages the interest of every reader. It would seem highly proper, that the fortunes of the discoverer of America should engage the pen of an inhabitant of her most favored and enlightened region; and it is unnecessary to add, that the task has been executed in a manner which must secure to the historian a share in the imperishable renown of his subject. The adventures of Columbus, which form so splendid an episode to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, cannot properly come within the scope of its historian, except so far as relates to his personal intercourse with the government, or their results on the fortunes of the Spanish monarchy.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Aragon, or rather Catalonia, maintained an extensive commerce with the Levant, and the remote regions of the east, during the Middle Ages, through the flourishing port of Barcelona. See Capmany y Montpalau, Memorias Históricas sobre la Marina, Comercio y Artes de Barcelona, (Madrid, 1779-92,) passim.

[2] A council of mathematicians in the court of John II., of Portugal, first devised the application of the ancient astrolabe to navigation, thus affording to the mariner the essential advantages appertaining to the modern quadrant. The discovery of the polarity of the needle, which vulgar tradition assigned to the Amalfite Flavio Gioja, and which Robertson has sanctioned without scruple, is clearly proved to have occurred more than a century earlier. Tiraboschi, who investigates the matter with his usual erudition, passing by the doubtful reference of Guiot de Provins, whose age and personal identity even are contested, traces the familiar use of the magnetic needle as far back as the first half of the thirteenth century, by a pertinent passage from Cardinal Vitri, who died 1244; and sustains this by several similar references to other authors of the same century. Capmany finds no notice of its use by the Castilian navigators earlier than 1403. It was not until considerably later in the fifteenth century, that the Portuguese voyagers, trusting to its guidance, ventured to quit the Mediterranean and African coasts, and extend their navigation to Madeira and the Azores. See Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron por Mar los Españoles, (Madrid, 1825-29,) tom. i. Int. sec. 33.--Tiraboschi, Letteratura Italiana, tom. iv. pp. 173, 174.--Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. part. 1, cap. 4.--Koch, Tableau des Révolutions de l'Europe, (Paris, 1814,) tom. i. pp. 358-360.

[3] Four of the islands were conquered on behalf of private adventurers, chiefly from Andalusia, before the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella, and under their reign were held as the property of a noble Castilian family, named Peraza. The sovereigns sent a considerable armament from Seville in 1480, which subdued the great island of Canary on behalf of the crown, and another in 1493, which effected the reduction of Palma and Teneriffe after a sturdy resistance from the natives. Bernaldez postpones the last conquest to 1495. Salazar de Mendoza, Monarquía, tom. i. pp. 347- 349.--Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, pp. 136, 203.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 64, 65, 66, 133.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. Introd., sec. 28.

[4] Among the provisions of the sovereigns enacted previous to the present date, may be noted those for regulating the coin and weights; for opening a free trade between Castile and Aragon; for security to Genoese and Venetian trading vessels; for safe conduct to mariners and fishermen; for privileges to the seamen of Palos; for prohibiting the plunder of vessels wrecked on the coast; and an ordinance of the very last year, requiring foreigners to take their return cargoes in the products of the country. See these laws as extracted from the Ordenanças Reales and the various public archives, in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 11.

[5] Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, pp. 373, 374, 398.--Zurita, Anales, tom. iv. lib. 20, cap. 30, 34.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages.

[6] Spotorno, Memorials of Columbus, (London, 1823,) p. 14.--Senarega, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., tom. xxiv. p. 535.--Antonio Gallo, De Navigatione Columbi, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., tom. xxiii. p. 202.

It is very generally agreed that the father of Columbus exercised the craft of a wool-carder, or weaver. The admiral's son Ferdinand, after some speculation on the genealogy of his illustrious parent, concludes with remarking, that, after all, a noble descent would confer less lustre on him than to have sprung from such a father; a philosophical sentiment, indicating pretty strongly that he had no great ancestry to boast of. Ferdinand finds something extremely mysterious and typical in his father's name of Columbus, signifying a dove, in token of his being ordained to "carry the olive-branch and oil of baptism over the ocean, like Noah's dove, to denote the peace and union of the heathen people with the church, after they had been shut up in the ark of darkness and confusion." Fernando Colon, Historia del Almirante, cap. 1, 2, apud Barcia, Historiadores Primitivos de las Indian Occidentals, (Madrid, 1749,) tom. i., tom. i. Introd., sec. 21, 24.--Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. vii. p. 548.

[7] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 131.--Muñoz, Historia del Nuevo- Mundo, (Madrid, 1793,) lib. 2, sec. 13.

There are no sufficient data for determining the period of Columbus's birth. The learned Muñoz places it in 1446. (Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 12.) Navarrete, who has weighed the various authorities with caution, seems inclined to remove it back eight or ten years further, resting chiefly on a remark of Bernaldez, that he died in 1506, "in a good old age, at the age of seventy, a little more or less." (Cap. 131.) The expression is somewhat vague. In order to reconcile the facts with this hypothesis, Navarrete is compelled to reject, as a chirographical blunder, a passage in a letter of the admiral, placing his birth in 1456, and to distort another passage in his book of "Prophecies," which, if literally taken, would seem to establish his birth near the time assigned by Muñoz. Incidental allusions in some other authorities, speaking of Columbus's old age at or near the time of his death, strongly corroborate Navarrete's inference. (See Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. Introd., sec. 54.)--Mr. Irving seems willing to rely exclusively on the authority of Bernaldez.

[8] Antonio de Herrera, Historia General de las Indias Occidentales, (Amberes, 1728,) tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 7.--Gomara, Historia de las Indias, cap. 14, apud Barcia, Hist. Primitivos, tom. ii.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 118.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. Introd., sec. 30.

Ferdinand Columbus enumerates three grounds on which his father's conviction of land in the west was founded. First, natural reason,--or conclusions drawn from science; secondly, authority of writers,--amounting to little more than vague speculations of the ancients; thirdly, testimony of sailors, comprehending, in addition to popular rumors of land described in western voyages, such relics as appeared to have floated to the European shores from the other side of the Atlantic. Hist. del Almirante, cap. 6-8.

[9] None of the intimations are so precise as that contained in the well- known lines of Seneca's Medea,

"Venient annuis saecula," etc.,

although, when regarded as a mere poetical vagary, it has not the weight which belongs to more serious suggestions, of similar import, in the writings of Aristotle and Strabo. The various allusions in the ancient classic writers to an undiscovered world form the subject of an elaborate essay in the Memorias da Acad. Real das Sciencias de Lisboa, (tom. v. pp. 101-112,) and are embodied, in much greater detail, in the first section of Hnmboldt's "Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent;" a work in which the author, with his usual acuteness, has successfully applied the vast stores of his erudition and experience to the illustration of many interesting points connected with the discovery of the New World, and the personal history of Columbus.

[10] It is probably the knowledge of this which has led some writers to impute part of his work to the learned Marsilio Ficino, and others, with still less charity and probability, to refer the authorship of the whole to Politian. Comp. Tasso, Opere, (Venezia, 1735-42,) tom. x. p. 129.--and Crescimbeni, Istoria della Volgar Poesia, (Venezia, 1731,) tom. iii. pp. 273, 274.

[11] Pulci, Morgante Maggiore, canto 25, st. 229, 230.--I have used blank verse, as affording facility for a more literal version than the corresponding ottava rima of the original. This passage of Pulci, which has not fallen under the notice of Humboldt, or any other writer on the same subject whom I have consulted, affords, probably, the most circumstantial prediction that is to be found of the existence of a western world. Dante, two centuries before, had intimated more vaguely his belief in an undiscovered quarter of the globe.

"De' vostri sensi, ch' è del rimanente, Non vogliate negar l'esperienza, Diretro al sol, del mondo senza gente."

Inferno, cant. 26, v. 115.

[12] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Col. Dipl., no. 1.--Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 17.--It is singular that Columbus, in his visit to Iceland, in 1477, (see Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 4,) should have learned nothing of the Scandinavian voyages to the northern shores of America in the tenth and following centuries; yet if he was acquainted with them, it appears equally surprising that he should not have adduced the fact in support of his own hypothesis of the existence of land in the west; and that he should have taken a route so different from that of his predecessors in the path of discovery. It may be, however, as M. de Humboldt has well remarked, that the information he obtained in Iceland was too vague to suggest the idea, that the lands thus discovered by the Northmen had any connection with the Indies, of which he was in pursuit. In Columbus's day, indeed, so little was understood of the true position of these countries, that Greenland is laid down on the maps in the European seas, and as a peninsular prolongation of Scandinavia. See Humboldt, Géographie du Nouveau Continent, tom. ii. pp. 118, 125.

[13] Herrera, Indias Occidentals, tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 7.--Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 19.--Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 15.--Benzoni, Novi Orbis Historia, lib. 1, cap. 6.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 10.--Faria y Sousa, Europa Portuguesa, tom. ii. part. 3, cap. 4.

[14] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Talavera.

[15] Salazar de Mendoza, Crón. del Gran Cardenal, p. 214.--Herrera, Indias Occidentales, tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 11.

[16] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 104.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. sec. 60, 61, tom. ii., Col. Dipl., nos. 2, 4.

[17] This prelate, Diego de Deza, was born of poor but respectable parents, at Toro. He early entered the Dominican order, where his learning and exemplary life recommended him to the notice of the sovereigns, who called him to court to take charge of Prince John's education. He was afterwards raised, through the usual course of episcopal preferment, to the metropolitan see of Seville. His situation, as confessor of Ferdinand, gave him great influence over that monarch, with whom he appears to have maintained an intimate correspondence, to the day of his death. Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Deza.

[18] Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 11.--Salazar de Mendoza, Crón. del Gran Cardenal, p. 215.--Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 25, 29.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i., Introd., sec. 60.

[19] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 27.--Spotorno, Memorials of Columbus, pp. 31-33.--The last dates the application to Genoa prior to that to Portugal.

A letter from the duke of Medina Celi to the cardinal of Spain, dated 19th March, 1493, refers to his entertaining Columbus as his guest for two years. It is very difficult to determine the date of these two years. If Herrera is correct in the statement, that, after a five years' residence at court, whose commencement he had previously referred to 1484, he carried his proposals to the duke of Medina Celi, (see cap. 7, 8.) the two years may have intervened between 1489-1491. Navarrete places them between the departure from Portugal and the first application to the court of Castile, in 1486. Some other writers, and among them Muñoz and Irving, referring his application to Genoa to 1485, and his first appearance in Spain to a subsequent period, make no provision for the residence with the duke of Medina Celi. Mr. Irving indeed is betrayed into a chronological inaccuracy, in speaking of a seven years' residence at the court in 1491, which he had previously noticed as having before begun in 1486. (Life of Columbus, (London, 1828,) comp. vol. i. pp. 109, 141.) In fact, the discrepancies among the earliest authorities are such as to render hopeless any attempt to settle with precision the chronology of Columbus's movements previous to his first voyage.

[20] Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. pp. 129, 130.--Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 31.--Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i., Introd., sec. 60.

[21] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Primer Viage de Colon, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. pp. 2, 117.-- Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 13.

[22] Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 28, 29.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, ubi supra.

[23] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.--Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 32, 33.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 14.--Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 15.

[24] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Col. Diplomat., nos. 5, 6. --Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 412.--Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. p. 605.

[25] Peter Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe, (Coloniae, 1574,) dec. 1, lib. 1.--Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Col. Diplomat., nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, 12.--Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 9.-- Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 14.--Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo- Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 33.--Benzoni, Novi Orbis Hist., lib. 1, cap. 6.-- Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 15.

The expression in the text will not seem too strong, even admitting the previous discoveries of the Northmen, which were made in so much higher latitudes. Humboldt has well shown the probability, a priori, of such discoveries, made in a narrow part of the Atlantic, where the Orcades, the Feroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland afforded the voyager so many intermediate stations, at moderate distances from each other. (Géographie du Nouveau Continent, tom. ii. pp. 183 et seq.) The publication of the original Scandinavian MSS., (of which imperfect notices and selections, only, have hitherto found their way into the world,) by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, at Copenhagen, is a matter of the deepest interest; and it is fortunate that it is to be conducted under auspices, which must insure its execution in the most faithful and able manner. It may be doubted, however, whether the declaration of the Prospectus, that "it was the knowledge of the Scandinavian voyages, in all probability, which prompted the expedition of Columbus," can ever be established. His personal history furnishes strong internal evidence to the contrary.

[26] How strikingly are the forlorn condition and indomitable energy of Columbus depicted in the following noble verses of Chiabrera;

"Certo da cor, ch' alto destin non scelse, Son l' imprese magnanime neglette; Ma le bell' alme alle bell' opre elette Sanno gioir nelle fatiche eccelse; Nè biasnio popolar, frale catena, Spirto d'onore, il suo cammin reffrena. Così lunga stagion per modi indegni Europa disprezzò l'inclita speme, Schernendo il vulgo, e seco i Regi insieme, Nudo nocchier, promettitor di Regni."

Rime, parte 1, canzone 12.

[27] Columbus, in a letter written on his third voyage, pays an honest, heartfelt tribute to the effectual patronage which he experienced from the queen. "In the midst of the general incredulity," says he, "the Almighty infused into the queen, my lady, the spirit of intelligence and energy; and, whilst every one else, in his ignorance, was expatiating only on the inconvenience and cost, her Highness approved it, on the contrary, and gave it all the support in her power." See Carta al Ama del Principe D. Juan, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. p. 266.

CHAPTER XVII.

EXPULSION OF THE JEWS FROM SPAIN.

1492.

Excitement against the Jews.--Edict of Expulsion.--Dreadful Sufferings of the Emigrants.--Whole Number of Exiles.--Disastrous Results.--True Motives of the Edict.--Contemporary Judgments.

While the Spanish sovereigns were detained before Granada, they published their memorable and most disastrous edict against the Jews; inscribing it, as it were, with the same pen which drew up the glorious capitulation of Granada and the treaty with Columbus. The reader has been made acquainted in a preceding chapter with the prosperous condition of the Jews in the Peninsula, and the pre-eminent consideration, which they attained there beyond any other part of Christendom. The envy raised by their prosperity, combined with the high religious excitement kindled in the long war with the infidel, directed the terrible arm of the Inquisition, as has been already stated, against this unfortunate people; but the result showed the failure of the experiment, since comparatively few conversions, and those frequently of a suspicious character, were effected, while the great mass still maintained a pertinacious attachment to ancient errors. [1]

Under these circumstances, the popular odium, inflamed by the discontent of the clergy at the resistance which they encountered in the work of proselytism, gradually grew stronger and stronger against the unhappy Israelites. Old traditions, as old indeed as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, were revived, and charged on the present generation, with all the details of place and action. Christian children were said to be kidnapped, in order to be crucified in derision of the Saviour; the host, it was rumored, was exposed to the grossest indignities; and physicians and apothecaries, whose science was particularly cultivated by the Jews in the Middle Ages, were accused of poisoning their Christian patients. No rumor was too absurd for the easy credulity of the people. The Israelites were charged with the more probable offence of attempting to convert to their own faith the ancient Christians, as well as to reclaim such of their own race as had recently embraced Christianity. A great scandal was occasioned also by the inter-marriages, which still occasionally took place between Jews and Christians; the latter condescending to repair their dilapidated fortunes by these wealthy alliances, though at the expense of their vaunted purity of blood. [2]

These various offences were urged against the Jews with great pertinacity by their enemies, and the sovereigns were importuned to adopt a more rigorous policy. The inquisitors, in particular, to whom the work of conversion had been specially intrusted, represented the incompetence of all lenient measures to the end proposed. They asserted, that the only mode left for the extirpation of the Jewish heresy, was to eradicate the seed; and they boldly demanded the immediate and total banishment of every unbaptized Israelite from the land. [3]

The Jews, who had obtained an intimation of these proceedings, resorted to their usual crafty policy for propitiating the sovereigns. They commissioned one of their body to tender a donative of thirty thousand ducats towards defraying the expenses of the Moorish war. The negotiation, however, was suddenly interrupted by the inquisitor-general, Torquemada, who burst into the apartment of the palace, where the sovereigns were giving audience to the Jewish deputy, and, drawing forth a crucifix from beneath his mantle, held it up, exclaiming, "Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty pieces of silver. Your Highnesses would sell him anew for thirty thousand; here he is, take him, and barter him away." So saying, the frantic priest threw the crucifix on the table, and left the apartment. The sovereigns, instead of chastising this presumption, or despising it as a mere freak of insanity, were overawed by it. Neither Ferdinand nor Isabella, had they been left to the unbiassed dictates of their own reason, could have sanctioned for a moment so impolitic a measure, which involved the loss of the most industrious and skilful portion of their subjects. Its extreme injustice and cruelty rendered it especially repugnant to the naturally humane disposition of the queen. [4] But she had been early schooled to distrust her own reason, and indeed the natural suggestions of humanity, in cases of conscience. Among the reverend counsellors, on whom she most relied in these matters, was the Dominican Torquemada. The situation which this man enjoyed as the queen's confessor, during the tender years of her youth, gave him an ascendency over her mind, which must have been denied to a person of his savage, fanatical temper, even with the advantages of this spiritual connection, had it been formed at a riper period of her life. Without opposing further resistance to the representations, so emphatically expressed, of the holy persons in whom she most confided, Isabella, at length, silenced her own scruples, and consented to the fatal measure of proscription.

The edict for the expulsion of the Jews was signed by the Spanish sovereigns at Granada, March 30th, 1492. The preamble alleges, in vindication of the measure, the danger of allowing further intercourse between the Jews and their Christian subjects, in consequence of the incorrigible obstinacy, with which the former persisted in their attempts to make converts of the latter to their own faith, and to instruct them in their heretical rites, in open defiance of every legal prohibition and penalty. When a college or corporation of any kind,--the instrument goes on to state,--is convicted of any great or detestable crime, it is right that it should be disfranchised, the less suffering with the greater, the innocent with the guilty. If this be the case in temporal concerns, it is much more so in those which affect the eternal welfare of the soul. It finally decrees, that all unbaptized Jews, of whatever sex, age, or condition, should depart from the realm by the end of July next ensuing; prohibiting them from revisiting it, on any pretext whatever, under penalty of death and confiscation of property. It was, moreover, interdicted to every subject, to harbor, succor, or minister to the necessities of any Jew, after the expiration of the term limited for his departure. The persons and property of the Jews, in the mean time, were taken under the royal protection. They were allowed to dispose of their effects of every kind on their own account, and to carry the proceeds along with them, in bills of exchange, or merchandise not prohibited, but neither in gold nor silver. [5]

The doom of exile fell like a thunderbolt on the heads of the Israelites. A large proportion of them had hitherto succeeded in shielding themselves from the searching eye of the Inquisition, by an affectation of reverence for the forms of Catholic worship, and a discreet forbearance of whatever might offend the prejudices of their Christian brethren. They had even hoped, that their steady loyalty, and a quiet and orderly discharge of their social duties, would in time secure them higher immunities. Many had risen to a degree of opulence, by means of the thrift and dexterity peculiar to the race, which gave them a still deeper interest in the land of their residence. [6] Their families were reared in all the elegant refinements of life; and their wealth and education often disposed them to turn their attention to liberal pursuits, which ennobled the character, indeed, but rendered them personally more sensible to physical annoyance, and less fitted to encounter the perils and privations of their dreary pilgrimage. Even the mass of the common people possessed a dexterity in various handicrafts, which afforded a comfortable livelihood, raising them far above similar classes in most other nations, who might readily be detached from the soil on which they happened to be cast, with comparatively little sacrifice of local interests. [7] These ties were now severed at a blow. They were to go forth as exiles from the land of their birth; the land where all whom they ever loved had lived or died; the land, not so much of their adoption, as of inheritance; which had been the home of their ancestors for centuries, and with whose prosperity and glory they were of course as intimately associated, as was any ancient Spaniard. They were to be cast out helpless and defenceless, with a brand of infamy set on them, among nations who had always held them in derision and hatred.

Those provisions of the edict, which affected a show of kindness to the Jews, were contrived so artfully, as to be nearly nugatory. As they were excluded from the use of gold and silver, the only medium for representing their property was bills of exchange. But commerce was too limited and imperfect to allow of these being promptly obtained to any very considerable, much less to the enormous amount required in the present instance. It was impossible, moreover, to negotiate a sale of their effects under existing circumstances, since the market was soon glutted with commodities; and few would be found willing to give anything like an equivalent for what, if not disposed of within the prescribed term, the proprietors must relinquish at any rate. So deplorable, indeed, was the sacrifice of property, that a chronicler of the day mentions, that he had seen a house exchanged for an ass, and a vineyard for a suit of clothes! In Aragon, matters were still worse. The government there discovered, that the Jews were largely indebted to individuals and to certain corporations. It accordingly caused their property to be sequestrated for the benefit of their creditors, until their debts should be liquidated. Strange, indeed, that the balance should be found against the people, who have been everywhere conspicuous for their commercial sagacity and resources, and who, as factors of the great nobility and farmers of the revenue, enjoyed at least equal advantages in Spain with those possessed in other countries, for the accumulation of wealth. [8]

While the gloomy aspect of their fortunes pressed heavily on the hearts of the Israelites, the Spanish clergy were indefatigable in the work of conversion. They lectured in the synagogues and public squares, expounding the doctrines of Christianity, and thundering forth both argument and invective against the Hebrew heresy. But their laudable endeavors were in a great measure counteracted by the more authoritative rhetoric of the Jewish Rabbins, who compared the persecutions of their brethren to those which their ancestors had suffered under Pharaoh. They encouraged them to persevere, representing that the present afflictions were intended as a trial of their faith by the Almighty, who designed in this way to guide them to the promised land, by opening a path through the waters, as he had done to their fathers of old. The more wealthy Israelites enforced their exhortations by liberal contributions for the relief of their indigent brethren. Thus strengthened, there were found but very few, when the day of departure arrived, who were not prepared to abandon their country rather than their religion. The extraordinary act of self-devotion by a whole people for conscience' sake may be thought, in the nineteenth century, to merit other epithets than those of "perfidy, incredulity, and stiff-necked obstinacy," with which the worthy Curate of Los Palacios, in the charitable feeling of that day, has seen fit to stigmatize it. [9]

When the period of departure arrived, all the principal routes through the country might be seen swarming with emigrants, old and young, the sick and the helpless, men, women, and children, mingled promiscuously together, some mounted on horses or mules, but far the greater part undertaking their painful pilgrimage on foot. The sight of so much misery touched even the Spaniards with pity, though none might succor them; for the grand inquisitor, Torquemada, enforced the ordinance to that effect, by denouncing heavy ecclesiastical censures on all who should presume to violate it. The fugitives were distributed along various routes, being determined in their destination by accidental circumstances, much more than any knowledge of the respective countries to which they were bound. Much the largest division, amounting according to some estimates to eighty thousand souls, passed into Portugal; whose monarch, John the Second, dispensed with his scruples of conscience so far as to give them a free passage through his dominions on their way to Africa, in consideration of a tax of a cruzado a head. He is even said to have silenced his scruples so far as to allow certain ingenious artisans to establish themselves permanently in the kingdom. [10]

A considerable number found their way to the ports of Santa Maria and Cadiz, where, after lingering some time in the vain hope of seeing the waters open for their egress, according to the promises of the Rabbins, they embarked on board a Spanish fleet for the Barbary coast. Having crossed over to Ercilla, a Christian settlement in Africa, whence they proceeded by land towards Fez, where a considerable body of their countrymen resided, they were assaulted on their route by the roving tribes of the desert, in quest of plunder. Notwithstanding the interdict, the Jews had contrived to secrete small sums of money, sewed up in their garments or the linings of their saddles. These did not escape the avaricious eyes of their spoilers, who are even said to have ripped open the bodies of their victims, in search of gold, which they were supposed to have swallowed. The lawless barbarians, mingling lust with avarice, abandoned themselves to still more frightful excesses, violating the wives and daughters of the unresisting Jews, or massacring in cold blood such as offered resistance. But without pursuing these loathsome details further, it need only be added, that the miserable exiles endured such extremity of famine, that they were glad to force a nourishment from the grass which grew scantily among the sands of the desert; until at length great numbers of them, wasted by disease, and broken in spirit, retraced their steps to Ercilla, and consented to be baptized, in the hope of being permitted to revisit their native land. The number, indeed, was so considerable, that the priest who officiated was obliged to make use of the mop, or hyssop, with which the Roman Catholic missionaries were wont to scatter the holy drops, whose mystic virtue could cleanse the soul in a moment from the foulest stains of infidelity. "Thus," says a Castilian historian, "the calamities of these poor blind creatures proved in the end an excellent remedy, that God made use of to unseal their eyes, which they now opened to the vain promises of the Rabbins; so that, renouncing their ancient heresies, they became faithful followers of the Cross!" [11]

Many of the emigrants took the direction of Italy. Those who landed at Naples brought with them an infectious disorder, contracted by long confinement in small, crowded, and ill-provided vessels. The disorder was so malignant, and spread with such frightful celerity, as to sweep off more than twenty thousand inhabitants of the city, in the course of the year, whence it extended its devastation over the whole Italian peninsula.

A graphic picture of these horrors is thus given by a Genoese historian, an eye-witness of the scenes he describes. "No one," he says, "could behold the sufferings of the Jewish exiles unmoved. A great many perished of hunger, especially those of tender years. Mothers, with scarcely strength to support themselves, carried their famished infants in their arms, and died with them. Many fell victims to the cold, others to intense thirst, while the unaccustomed distresses incident to a sea-voyage aggravated their maladies. I will not enlarge on the cruelty and the avarice which they frequently experienced from the masters of the ships which transported them from Spain. Some were murdered to gratify their cupidity, others forced to sell their children for the expenses of the passage. They arrived in Genoa in crowds, but were not suffered to tarry there long, by reason of the ancient law which interdicted the Jewish traveller from a longer residence than three days. They were allowed, however, to refit their vessels, and to recruit themselves for some days from the fatigues of their voyage. One might have taken them for spectres, so emaciated were they, so cadaverous in their aspect, and with eyes so sunken; they differed in nothing from the dead, except in the power of motion, which indeed they scarcely retained. Many fainted and expired on the mole, which, being completely surrounded by the sea, was the only quarter vouchsafed to the wretched emigrants. The infection bred by such a swarm of dead and dying persons was not at once perceived; but, when the winter broke up, ulcers began to make their appearance, and the malady, which lurked for a long time in the city, broke out into the plague in the following year." [12]

Many of the exiles passed into Turkey, and to different parts of the Levant, where their descendants continued to speak the Castilian language far into the following century. Others found their way to France, and even England. Part of their religious services is recited to this day in Spanish, in one or more of the London synagogues; and the modern Jew still reverts with fond partiality to Spain, as the cherished land of his fathers, illustrated by the most glorious recollections in their eventful history. [13]

The whole number of Jews expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella is variously computed from one hundred and sixty thousand to eight hundred thousand souls; a discrepancy sufficiently indicating the paucity of authentic data. Most modern writers, with the usual predilection for startling results, have assumed the latter estimate; and Llorente has made it the basis of some important calculations, in his History of the Inquisition. A view of all the circumstances will lead us without much hesitation to adopt the more moderate computation. [14] This, moreover, is placed beyond reasonable doubt by the direct testimony of the Curate of Los Palacios. He reports, that a Jewish Rabbin, one of the exiles, subsequently returned to Spain, where he was baptized by him. This person, whom Bernaldez commends for his intelligence, estimated the whole number of his unbaptized countrymen in the dominions of Ferdinand and Isabella, at the publication of the edict, at thirty-six thousand families. Another Jewish authority, quoted by the Curate, reckoned them at thirty-five thousand. This, assuming an average of four and a half to a family, gives the sum total of about one hundred and sixty thousand individuals, agreeably to the computation of Bernaldez. There is little reason for supposing, that the actual amount would suffer diminution in the hands of either the Jewish or Castilian authority; since the one might naturally be led to exaggerate, in order to heighten sympathy with the calamities of his nation, and the other, to magnify as far as possible the glorious triumphs of the Cross. [15]

The detriment incurred by the state, however, is not founded so much on any numerical estimate, as on the subtraction of the mechanical skill, intelligence, and general resources of an orderly, industrious population. In this view, the mischief was incalculably greater than that inferred by the mere number of the exiled; and, although even this might have been gradually repaired in a country allowed the free and healthful development of its energies, yet in Spain this was so effectually counteracted by the Inquisition, and other causes in the following century, that the loss may be deemed irretrievable.

The expulsion of so numerous a class of subjects by an independent act of the sovereign, might well be regarded as an enormous stretch of prerogative, altogether incompatible with anything like a free government. But to judge the matter rightly, we must take into view the actual position of the Jews at that time. Far from forming an integral part of the commonwealth, they were regarded as alien to it, as a mere excrescence, which, so far from contributing to the healthful action of the body politic, was nourished by its vicious humors, and might be lopped off at any time, when the health of the system demanded it. Far from being protected by the laws, the only aim of the laws, in reference to them, was to define more precisely their civil incapacities, and to draw the line of division more broadly between them and the Christians. Even this humiliation by no means satisfied the national prejudices, as is evinced by the great number of tumults and massacres of which they were the victims. In these circumstances, it seemed to be no great assumption of authority, to pronounce sentence of exile against those whom public opinion had so long proscribed as enemies to the state. It was only carrying into effect that opinion, expressed as it had been in a great variety of ways; and, as far as the rights of the nation were concerned, the banishment of a single Spaniard would have been held a grosser violation of them, than that of the whole race of Israelites.

It has been common with modern historians to detect a principal motive for the expulsion of the Jews, in the avarice of the government. It is only necessary, however, to transport ourselves back to those times, to find it in perfect accordance with their spirit, at least in Spain. It is indeed incredible, that persons possessing the political sagacity of Ferdinand and Isabella could indulge a temporary cupidity at the sacrifice of the most important and permanent interests, converting their wealthiest districts into a wilderness, and dispeopling them of a class of citizens who contributed beyond all others, not only to the general resources, but the direct revenues of the crown; a measure so manifestly unsound, as to lead even a barbarian monarch of that day to exclaim, "Do they call this Ferdinand a politic prince, who can thus impoverish his own kingdom and enrich ours!" [16] It would seem, indeed, when the measure had been determined on, that the Aragonese monarch was willing, by his expedient of sequestration, to control its operation in such a manner as to secure to his own subjects the full pecuniary benefit of it. [17] No imputation of this kind attaches to Castile. The clause of the ordinance, which might imply such a design, by interdicting the exportation of gold and silver, was only enforcing a law, which had been already twice enacted by cortes in the present reign, and which was deemed of such moment, that the offence was made capital. [18]

We need look no further for the principle of action, in this case, than the spirit of religious bigotry, which led to a similar expulsion of the Jews from England, France, and other parts of Europe, as well as from Portugal, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, a few years later. [19] Indeed, the spirit of persecution did not expire with the fifteenth century, but extended far into the more luminous periods of the seventeenth and eighteenth; and that, too, under a ruler of the enlarged capacity of Frederic the Great, whose intolerance could not plead in excuse the blindness of fanaticism. [20] How far the banishment of the Jews was conformable to the opinions of the most enlightened contemporaries, may be gathered from the encomiums lavished on its authors from more than one quarter. Spanish writers, without exception, celebrate it as a sublime sacrifice of all temporal interests to religious principle. The best instructed foreigners, in like manner, however they may condemn the details of its execution, or commiserate the sufferings of the Jews, commend the act, as evincing the most lively and laudable zeal for the true faith. [21]

It cannot be denied, that Spain at this period surpassed most of the nations of Christendom in religious enthusiasm, or, to speak more correctly, in bigotry. This is doubtless imputable to the long war with the Moslems, and its recent glorious issue, which swelled every heart with exultation, disposing it to consummate the triumphs of the Cross by purging the land from a heresy, which, strange as it may seem, was scarcely less detested than that of Mahomet. Both the sovereigns partook largely of these feelings. With regard to Isabella, moreover, it must be borne constantly in mind, as has been repeatedly remarked in the course of this History, that she had been used to surrender her own judgment, in matters of conscience, to those spiritual guardians, who were supposed in that age to be its rightful depositaries, and the only casuists who could safely determine the doubtful line of duty. Isabella's pious disposition, and her trembling solicitude to discharge her duty, at whatever cost of personal inclination, greatly enforced the precepts of education. In this way, her very virtues became the source of her errors. Unfortunately, she lived in an age and station, which attached to these errors the most momentous consequences. [22]--But we gladly turn from these dark prospects to a brighter page of her history.

FOOTNOTES

[1] It is a proof of the high consideration in which such Israelites as were willing to embrace Christianity were held, that three of that number, Alvarez, Avila, and Pulgar, were private secretaries of the queen. (Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 18.)

An incidental expression of Martyr's, among many similar ones by contemporaries, affords the true key to the popular odium against the Jews. "Cum namque viderent, Judaeorum tabido commercio, qui hac horâ sunt in Hispaniâ innumeri Christianis ditiores, plurimorum animos corrumpi ac seduci," etc. Opus Epist., epist. 92.

[2] Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, p. 164.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. cap. 7, sec. 3.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 94.--Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 128.

[3] Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, p. 163.

Salazar de Mendoza refers the sovereign's consent to the banishment of the Jews, in a great measure, to the urgent remonstrances of the cardinal of Spain. The bigotry of the biographer makes him claim the credit of every fanatical act for his illustrious hero. See Crón. del Gran Cardenal, p. 250.

[4] Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 7, sect. 5.

Pulgar, in a letter to the cardinal of Spain, animadverting with much severity on the tenor of certain municipal ordinances against the Jews in Guipuscoa and Toledo, in 1482, plainly intimates, that they were not at all to the taste of the queen. See Letras, (Amstelodami, 1670,) let. 31.

[5] Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1492.--Recep. de las Leyes, lib. 8, tit. 2, ley 2.--Pragmáticas del Reyno, ed. 1520, fol. 3.

[6] The Curate of Los Palacios speaks of several Israelites worth one or two millions of maravedies, and another even as having amassed ten. He mentions one in particular, by the name of Abraham, as renting the greater part of Castile! It will hardly do to take the good Curate's statement à la lettre. See Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 112.

[7] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, ubi supra.

[8] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 10.--Zurita, Analos, tom. v. fol. 9.

Capmany notices the number of synagogues existing in Aragon, in 1428, as amounting to nineteen. In Galicia at the same time there were but three, and in Catalonia but one. See Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iv. Apend. num. 11.

[9] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 10, 113.--Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 131.

[10] Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 9.--Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 133.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, ubi supra.--La Clède, Hist. de Portugal, tom. iv. p. 95.--Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. p. 602.

[11] Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 133.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 113.

[12] Senarega, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., tom. xxiv. pp. 531, 532.

[13] See a sensible notice of Hebrew literature in Spain, in the Retrospective Review, vol. iii. p. 209.--Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. lib. 26, cap. 1.--Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 9.

Not a few of the learned exiles attained to eminence in those countries of Europe where they transferred their residence. One is mentioned by Castro as a leading practitioner of medicine in Genoa; another, as filling the posts of astronomer and chronicler, under King Emanuel of Portugal. Many of them published works in various departments of science, which were translated into the Spanish and other European languages. Biblioteca Española, tom. i. pp. 359-372.

[14] From a curious document in the Archives of Simancas, consisting of a report made to the Spanish sovereigns by their accountant general, Quintanilla, in 1492, it would appear, that the population of the kingdom of Castile, exclusive of Granada, was then estimated at 1,500,000 vecinos, or householders. (See Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Apend. no. 12.) This, allowing four and a half to a family, would make the whole population 6,750,000. It appears from the statement of Bernaldez, that the kingdom of Castile contained five-sixths of the whole amount of Jews in the Spanish monarchy. This proportion, if 800,000 be received as the total, would amount in round numbers to 670,000, or ten per cent, of the whole population of the kingdom. Now, it is manifestly improbable that so large a portion of the whole nation, conspicuous moreover for wealth and intelligence, could have been held so light in a political aspect, as the Jews certainly were, or have tamely submitted for so many years to the most wanton indignities without resistance; or finally, that the Spanish government would have ventured on so bold a measure as the banishment of so numerous and powerful a class, and that too with as few precautions, apparently, as would be required for driving out of the country a roving gang of gypsies.

[15] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 110.--Llorente, Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. chap. 7, sect. 7.--Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. lib. 26.--Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 9.

[16] Bajazet. See Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. p. 310.--Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, p. 168.

[17] "In truth," Father Abarca somewhat innocently remarks, "King Ferdinand was a politic Christian, making the interests of church and state mutually subservient to each other"! Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. fol. 310.

[18] Once at Toledo, 1480, and at Murcia, 1488. See Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 6, tit. 18, ley 1.

[19] The Portuguese government caused all children of fourteen years of age, or under, to be taken from their parents and retained in the country, as fit subjects for a Christian education. The distress occasioned by this cruel provision may be well imagined. Many of the unhappy parents murdered their children to defeat the ordinance; and many laid violent hands on themselves. Faria y Sousa coolly remarks, that "It was a great mistake in King Emanuel to think of converting any Jew to Christianity, old enough to pronounce the name of Moses!" He fixes three years of age as the utmost limit. (Europa Portuguesa, tom. ii. p. 496.)

Mr. Turner has condensed, with his usual industry, the most essential chronological facts relative to modern Jewish history, into a note contained in the second volume of his History of England, pp. 114-120.

[20] They were also rejected from Vienna, in 1669. The illiberal, and indeed most cruel legislation of Frederic II., in reference to his Jewish subjects, transports us back to the darkest periods of the Visigothic monarchy. The reader will find a summary of these enactments in the third volume of Milman's agreeable History of the Jews.

[21] The accomplished and amiable Florentine, Pico di Mirandola, in his treatise on Judicial Astrology, remarks that, "the sufferings of the Jews, in which the glory of divine justice delighted, were so extreme as to fill us Christians with commiseration." The Genoese historian, Senarega, indeed admits that the measure savored of some slight degree of cruelty. "Res haec primo conspectu laudabilis visa est, quia decus nostrae Religionis respiceret, sed aliquantulum in se crudelitatis continere, si eos non belluas, sed homines a Deo creatos, consideravimus." De Rebus Genuensibus, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., tom. xxiv.-- Illescas, Hist. Pontif., apud Paramo, De Origine Inquisitionis, p. 167.

[22] Llorente sums up his account of the expulsion, by assigning the following motives to the principal agents in the business. "The measure," he says, "may be referred to the fanaticism of Torquemada, to the avarice and superstition of Ferdinand, to the false ideas and inconsiderate zeal with which they had inspired Isabella, to whom history cannot refuse the praise of great sweetness of disposition, and an enlightened mind." Hist. de l'Inquisition, tom. i. ch. 7, sec. 10.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF FERDINAND.--RETURN AND SECOND VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS.

1492-1493.

Attempt on Ferdinand's Life.--Consternation and Loyalty of the People.-- Return of Columbus.--His Progress to Barcelona.--Interviews with the Sovereigns.--Sensations caused by the Discovery.--Regulations of Trade.-- Conversion of the Natives.--Famous Bulls of Alexander VI.--Jealousy of Portugal.--Second Voyage of Columbus.--Treaty of Tordesillas.

Towards the latter end of May, 1492, the Spanish sovereigns quitted Granada, between which and Santa Fe they had divided their time since the surrender of the Moorish metropolis. They were occupied during the two following months with the affairs of Castile. In August they visited Aragon, proposing to establish their winter residence there in order to provide for its internal administration, and conclude the negotiations for the final surrender of Roussillon and Cerdagne by France, to which these provinces had been mortgaged by Ferdinand's father, John the Second; proving ever since a fruitful source of diplomacy, which threatened more than once to terminate in open rupture.

Ferdinand and Isabella arrived in Aragon on the 8th of August, accompanied by Prince John and the infantas, and a brilliant train of Castilian nobles. In their progress through the country they were everywhere received with the most lively enthusiasm. The whole nation seemed to abandon itself to jubilee, at the approach of its illustrious sovereigns, whose heroic constancy had rescued Spain from the detested empire of the Saracens. After devoting some months to the internal police of the kingdom, the court transferred its residence to Catalonia, whose capital it reached about the middle of October. During its detention in this place, Ferdinand's career was wellnigh brought to an untimely close. [1]

It was a good old custom of Catalonia, long since fallen into desuetude, for the monarch to preside in the tribunals of justice, at least once a week, for the purpose of determining the suits of the poorer classes especially, who could not afford the more expensive forms of litigation. King Ferdinand, in conformity with this usage, held a court in the house of deputation, on the 7th of December, being the vigil of the conception of the Virgin. At noon, as he was preparing to quit the palace, after the conclusion of business, he lingered in the rear of his retinue, conversing with some of the officers of the court. As the party was issuing from a little chapel contiguous to the royal saloon, and just as the king was descending a flight of stairs, a ruffian darted from an obscure recess in which he had concealed himself early in the morning, and aimed a blow with a short sword, or knife, at the back of Ferdinand's neck. Fortunately the edge of the weapon was turned by a gold chain or collar which he was in the habit of wearing. It inflicted, however, a deep wound between the shoulders. Ferdinand instantly cried out, "St. Mary preserve us! treason, treason!" and his attendants, rushing on the assassin, stabbed him in three places with their poniards, and would have despatched him on the spot, had not the king, with his usual presence of mind, commanded them to desist, and take the man alive, that they might ascertain the real authors of the conspiracy. This was done accordingly, and Ferdinand, fainting with loss of blood, was carefully removed to his apartments in the royal palace. [2]

The report of the catastrophe spread like wildfire through the city. All classes were thrown into consternation by so foul an act, which seemed to cast a stain on the honor and good faith of the Catalans. Some suspected it to be the work of a vindictive Moor, others of a disappointed courtier. The queen, who had swooned on first receiving intelligence of the event, suspected the ancient enmity of the Catalans, who had shown such determined opposition to her husband in his early youth. She gave instant orders to hold in readiness one of the galleys lying in the port, in order to transport her children from the place, as she feared the conspiracy might be designed to embrace other victims. [3]

The populace, in the mean while, assembled in great numbers round the palace where the king lay. All feelings of hostility had long since given way to devoted loyalty towards a government, which had uniformly respected the liberties of its subjects, and whose paternal sway had secured similar blessings to Barcelona with the rest of the empire. They thronged round the building, crying out that the king was slain, and demanding that his murderers should be delivered up to them. Ferdinand, exhausted as he was, would have presented himself at the window of his apartment, but was prevented from making the effort by his physicians. It was with great difficulty that the people were at length satisfied that he was still living, and that they finally consented to disperse, on the assurance, that the assassin should be brought to condign punishment.

The king's wound, which did not appear dangerous at first, gradually exhibited more alarming symptoms. One of the bones was found to be fractured, and a part of it was removed by the surgeons. On the seventh day his situation was considered extremely critical. During this time, the queen was constantly by his side, watching with him day and night, and administering all his medicines with her own hand. At length, the unfavorable symptoms yielded; and his excellent constitution enabled him so far to recover, that in less than three weeks he was able to show himself to the eyes of his anxious subjects, who gave themselves up to a delirium of joy, offering thanksgivings and grateful oblations in the churches; while many a pilgrimage, which had been vowed for his restoration to health, was performed by the good people of Barcelona, with naked feet, and even on their knees, among the wild sierras that surround the city.

The author of the crime proved to be a peasant, about sixty years of age, of that humble class, de remensa, as it was termed, which Ferdinand had been so instrumental some few years since in releasing from the baser and more grinding pains of servitude. The man appeared to be insane; alleging, in vindication of his conduct, that he was the rightful proprietor of the crown, which he expected to obtain by Ferdinand's death. He declared himself willing, however, to give up his pretensions, on condition of being set at liberty. The king, convinced of his alienation of mind, would have discharged him; but the Catalans, indignant at the reproach which such a crime seemed to attach to their own honor, and perhaps distrusting the plea of insanity, thought it necessary to expiate it by the blood of the offender, and condemned the unhappy wretch to the dreadful doom of a traitor; the preliminary barbarities of the sentence, however, were remitted, at the intercession of the queen. [4]

In the spring of 1493, while the court was still at Barcelona, letters were received from Christopher Columbus, announcing his return to Spain, and the successful achievement of his great enterprise, by the discovery of land beyond the western ocean. The delight and astonishment, raised by this intelligence, were proportioned to the skepticism, with which his project had been originally viewed. The sovereigns were now filled with a natural impatience to ascertain the extent and other particulars of the important discovery; and they transmitted instant instructions to the admiral to repair to Barcelona, as soon as he should have made the preliminary arrangements for the further prosecution of his enterprise. [5]

The great navigator had succeeded, as is well known, after a voyage the natural difficulties of which had been much augmented by the distrust and mutinous spirit of his followers, in descrying land on Friday, the 12th of October, 1492. After some months spent in exploring the delightful regions, now for the first time thrown open to the eyes of a European, he embarked in the month of January, 1493, for Spain. One of his vessels had previously foundered, and another had deserted him; so that he was left alone to retrace his course across the Atlantic. After a most tempestuous voyage, he was compelled to take shelter in the Tagus, sorely against his inclination. [6] He experienced, however, the most honorable reception from the Portuguese monarch, John the Second, who did ample justice to the great qualities of Columbus, although he had failed to profit by them. [7] After a brief delay, the admiral resumed his voyage, and crossing the bar of Saltes entered the harbor of Palos about noon, on the 15th of March, 1493, being exactly seven months and eleven days since his departure from that port. [8]

Great was the agitation in the little community of Palos, as they beheld the well-known vessel of the admiral re-entering their harbor. Their desponding imaginations had long since consigned him to a watery grave; for, in addition to the preternatural horrors which hung over the voyage, they had experienced the most stormy and disastrous winter within the recollection of the oldest mariners. [9] Most of them had relatives or friends on board. They thronged immediately to the shore, to assure themselves with their own eyes of the truth of their return. When they beheld their faces once more, and saw them accompanied by the numerous evidences which they brought back of the success of the expedition, they burst forth in acclamations of joy and gratulation. They awaited the landing of Columbus, when the whole population of the place accompanied him and his crew to the principal church, where solemn thanksgivings were offered up for their return; while every bell in the village sent forth a joyous peal in honor of the glorious event. The admiral was too desirous of presenting himself before the sovereigns, to protract his stay long at Palos. He took with him on his journey specimens of the multifarious products of the newly discovered regions. He was accompanied by several of the native islanders, arrayed in their simple barbaric costume, and decorated, as he passed through the principal cities, with collars, bracelets, and other ornaments of gold, rudely fashioned; he exhibited also considerable quantities of the same metal in dust, or in crude masses, [10] numerous vegetable exotics, possessed of aromatic or medicinal virtue, and several kinds of quadrupeds unknown in Europe, and birds, whose varieties of gaudy plumage gave a brilliant effect to the pageant. The admiral's progress through the country was everywhere impeded by the multitudes thronging forth to gaze at the extraordinary spectacle, and the more extraordinary man, who, in the emphatic language of that time, which has now lost its force from its familiarity, first revealed the existence of a "New World." As he passed through the busy, populous city of Seville, every window, balcony, and housetop, which could afford a glimpse of him, is described to have been crowded with spectators. It was the middle of April before Columbus reached Barcelona. The nobility and cavaliers in attendance on the court, together with the authorities of the city, came to the gates to receive him, and escorted him to the royal presence. Ferdinand and Isabella were seated, with their son, Prince John, under a superb canopy of state, awaiting his arrival. On his approach, they rose from their seats, and, extending their hands to him to salute, caused him to be seated before them. These were unprecedented marks of condescension to a person of Columbus's rank, in the haughty and ceremonious court of Castile. It was, indeed, the proudest moment in the life of Columbus. He had fully established the truth of his long-contested theory, in the face of argument, sophistry, sneer, skepticism, and contempt. He had achieved this, not by chance, but by calculation, supported through the most adverse circumstances by consummate conduct. The honors paid him, which had hitherto been reserved only for rank, or fortune, or military success, purchased by the blood and tears of thousands, were, in his case, a homage to intellectual power, successfully exerted in behalf of the noblest interests of humanity. [11]

After a brief interval, the sovereigns requested from Columbus a recital of his adventures. His manner was sedate and dignified, but warmed by the glow of natural enthusiasm. He enumerated the several islands which he had visited, expatiated on the temperate character of the climate, and the capacity of the soil for every variety of agricultural production, appealing to the samples imported by him, as evidence of their natural fruitfulness. He dwelt more at large on the precious metals to be found in these islands, which he inferred, less from the specimens actually obtained, than from the uniform testimony of the natives to their abundance in the unexplored regions of the interior. Lastly, he pointed out the wide scope afforded to Christian zeal, in the illumination of a race of men, whose minds, far from being wedded to any system of idolatry, were prepared by their extreme simplicity for the reception of pure and uncorrupted doctrine. The last consideration touched Isabella's heart most sensibly; and the whole audience, kindled with various emotions by the speaker's eloquence, filled up the perspective with the gorgeous coloring of their own fancies, as ambition, or avarice, or devotional feeling predominated in their bosoms. When Columbus ceased, the king and queen, together with all present, prostrated themselves on their knees in grateful thanksgivings, while the solemn strains of the Te Deum were poured forth by the choir of the royal chapel, as in commemoration of some glorious victory. [12]

The discoveries of Columbus excited a sensation, particularly among men of science, in the most distant parts of Europe, strongly contrasting with the apathy which had preceded them. They congratulated one another on being reserved for an age which had witnessed the consummation of so grand an event. The learned Martyr, who, in his multifarious correspondence, had not even deigned to notice the preparations for the voyage of discovery, now lavished the most unbounded panegyric on its results; which he contemplated with the eye of a philosopher, having far less reference to considerations of profit or policy, than to the prospect which they unfolded of enlarging the boundaries of knowledge. [12]

Most of the scholars of the day, however, adopted the erroneous hypothesis of Columbus, who considered the lands he had discovered, as bordering on the eastern shores of Asia, and lying adjacent to the vast and opulent regions depicted in such golden colors by Mandeville and the Poli. This conjecture, which was conformable to the admiral's opinions before undertaking the voyage, was corroborated by the apparent similarity between various natural productions of these islands, and of the east. From this misapprehension, the new dominions soon came to be distinguished as the West Indies, an appellation by which they are still recognized in the titles of the Spanish. crown. [13]

Columbus, during his residence at Barcelona, continued to receive from the Spanish sovereigns the most honorable distinctions which royal bounty could confer. When Ferdinand rode abroad, he was accompanied by the admiral at his side. The courtiers, in emulation of their master, made frequent entertainments, at which he was treated with the punctilious deference paid to a noble of the highest class. [14] But the attentions most grateful to his lofty spirit were the preparations of the Spanish court for prosecuting his discoveries, on a scale commensurate with their importance. A board was established for the direction of Indian affairs, consisting of a superintendent and two subordinate functionaries. The first of these officers was Juan de Fonseca, archdeacon of Seville, an active, ambitious prelate, subsequently raised to high episcopal preferment, whose shrewdness, and capacity for business, enabled him to maintain the control of the Indian department during the whole of the present reign. An office for the transaction of business was instituted at Seville, and a custom-house placed under its direction at Cadiz. This was the origin of the important establishment of the Casa de la Contratacion de las Indias, or India House. [15]

The commercial regulations adopted exhibit a narrow policy in some of their features, for which a justification may be found in the spirit of the age, and in the practice of the Portuguese particularly, but which entered still more largely into the colonial legislation of Spain under later princes. The new territories, far from being permitted free intercourse with foreign nations, were opened only under strict limitations to Spanish subjects, and were reserved, as forming, in some sort, part of the exclusive revenue of the crown. All persons of whatever description were interdicted, under the severest penalties, from trading with, or even visiting the Indies, without license from the constituted authorities. It was impossible to evade this, as a minute specification of the ships; cargoes, crews, with the property appertaining to each individual, was required to be taken at the office in Cadiz, and a corresponding registration in a similar office established at Hispaniola. A more sagacious spirit was manifested in the ample provision made of whatever could contribute to the support or permanent prosperity of the infant colony. Grain, plants, the seeds of numerous vegetable products, which in the genial climate of the Indies might be made valuable articles for domestic consumption or export, were liberally furnished. Commodities of every description for the supply of the fleet were exempted from duty. The owners of all vessels throughout the ports of Andalusia were required, by an ordinance somewhat arbitrary, to hold them in readiness for the expedition. Still further authority was given to impress both officers and men, if necessary, into the service. Artisans of every sort, provided with the implements of their various crafts, including a great number of miners for exploring the subterraneous treasures of the new regions, were enrolled in the expedition; in order to defray the heavy charges of which, the government, in addition to the regular resources, had recourse to a loan, and to the sequestrated property of the exiled Jews. [16]

Amid their own temporal concerns, the Spanish sovereigns did not forget the spiritual interests of their new subjects. The Indians, who accompanied Columbus to Barcelona, had been all of them baptized, being offered up, in the language of a Castilian writer, as the first-fruits of the gentiles. King Ferdinand, and his son, Prince John, stood as sponsors to two of them, who were permitted to take their names. One of the Indians remained attached to the prince's establishment; the residue were sent to Seville, whence, after suitable religious instruction, they were to be returned as missionaries for the propagation of the faith among their own countrymen. Twelve Spanish ecclesiastics were also destined to this service; among whom was the celebrated Las Casas, so conspicuous afterwards for his benevolent exertions in behalf of the unfortunate natives. The most explicit directions were given to the admiral, to use every effort for the illumination of the poor heathen, which was set forth as the primary object of the expedition. He was particularly enjoined "to abstain from all means of annoyance, and to treat them well and lovingly, maintaining a familiar intercourse with them, rendering them all the kind offices in his power, distributing presents of the merchandise and various commodities, which their Highnesses had caused to be embarked on board the fleet for that purpose; and finally, to chastise, in the most exemplary manner, all who should offer the natives the slightest molestation." Such were the instructions emphatically urged on Columbus for the regulation of his intercourse with the savages; and their indulgent tenor sufficiently attests the benevolent and rational views of Isabella, in religious matters, when not warped by any foreign influence. [17]

Towards the last of May, Columbus quitted Barcelona for the purpose of superintending and expediting the preparations for departure on his second voyage. He was accompanied to the gates of the city by all the nobility and cavaliers of the court. Orders were issued to the different towns to provide him and his suite with lodgings free of expense. His former commission was not only confirmed in its full extent, but considerably enlarged. For the sake of despatch, he was authorized to nominate to all offices, without application to government; and ordinances and letters patent, bearing the royal seal, were to be issued by him, subscribed by himself or his deputy. He was intrusted, in fine, with such unlimited jurisdiction, as showed, that, however tardy the sovereigns may have been in granting him their confidence, they were not disposed to stint the measure of it, when his deserts were once established. [18]

Soon after Columbus's return to Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella applied to the court of Rome, to confirm them in the possession of their recent discoveries, and invest them with similar extent of jurisdiction with that formerly conferred on the kings of Portugal. It was an opinion, as ancient perhaps as the crusades, that the pope, as vicar of Christ, had competent authority to dispose of all countries inhabited by heathen nations, in favor of Christian potentates. Although Ferdinand and Isabella do not seem to have been fully satisfied of this right, yet they were willing to acquiesce in its assumption in the present instance, from the conviction that the papal sanction would most effectually exclude the pretensions of all others, and especially their Portuguese rivals. In their application to the Holy See, they were careful to represent their own discoveries as in no way interfering with the rights formerly conceded by it to their neighbors. They enlarged on their services in the propagation of the faith, which they affirmed to be a principal motive of their present operations. They intimated, finally, that, although many competent persons deemed their application to the court of Rome, for a title to territories already in their possession, to be unnecessary, yet, as pious princes, and dutiful children of the church, they were unwilling to proceed further without the sanction of him, to whose keeping its highest interests were intrusted. [19]

The pontifical throne was at that time filled by Alexander the Sixth; a man who, although degraded by unrestrained indulgence of the most sordid appetites, was endowed by nature with singular acuteness, as well as energy of character. He lent a willing ear to the application of the Spanish government, and made no hesitation in granting what cost him nothing, while it recognized the assumption of powers, which had already begun to totter in the opinion of mankind.

On the 3d of May, 1493, he published a bull, in which, taking into consideration the eminent services of the Spanish monarchs in the cause of the church, especially in the subversion of the Mahometan empire in Spain, and willing to afford still wider scope for the prosecution of their pious labors, he, "out of his pure liberality, infallible knowledge, and plenitude of apostolic power," confirmed them in the possession of all lands discovered or hereafter to be discovered by them in the western ocean, comprehending the same extensive rights of jurisdiction with those formerly conceded to the kings of Portugal.

This bull he supported by another, dated on the following day, in which the pope, in order to obviate any misunderstanding with the Portuguese, and acting no doubt on the suggestion of the Spanish sovereigns, defined with greater precision the intention of his original grant to the latter, by bestowing on them all such lands as they should discover to the west and south of an imaginary line, to be drawn from pole to pole, at the distance of one hundred leagues to the west of the Azores and Cape de Verd Islands. [20] It seems to have escaped his Holiness, that the Spaniards, by pursuing a western route, might in time reach the eastern limits of countries previously granted to the Portuguese. At least this would appear from the import of a third bull, issued September 25th of the same year, which invested the sovereigns with plenary authority over all countries discovered by them, whether in the east, or within the boundaries of India, all previous concessions to the contrary notwithstanding. With the title derived from actual possession, thus fortified by the highest ecclesiastical sanction, the Spaniards might have promised themselves an uninterrupted career of discovery, but for the jealousy of their rivals, the Portuguese. [21]

The court of Lisbon viewed with secret disquietude the increasing maritime enterprise of its neighbors. While the Portuguese were timidly creeping along the barren shores of Africa, the Spaniards had boldly launched into the deep, and rescued unknown realms from its embraces, which teemed in their fancies with treasures of inestimable wealth. Their mortification was greatly enhanced by the reflection, that all this might have been achieved for themselves, had they but known how to profit by the proposals of Columbus. [22] From the first moment in which the success of the admiral's enterprise was established, John the Second, a politic and ambitious prince, had sought some pretence to check the career of discovery, or at least to share in the spoils of it. [23]

In his interview with Columbus, at Lisbon, he suggested, that the discoveries of the Spaniards might interfere with the rights secured to the Portuguese by repeated papal sanctions since the beginning of the present century, and guaranteed by the treaty with Spain, in 1479. Columbus, without entering into the discussion, contented himself with declaring, that he had been instructed by his own government to steer clear of all Portuguese settlements on the African coast, and that his course indeed had led him in an entirely different direction. Although John professed himself satisfied with the explanation, he soon after despatched an ambassador to Barcelona, who, after dwelling on some irrelevant topics, touched, as it were, incidentally on the real object of his mission, the late voyage of discovery. He congratulated the Spanish sovereigns on its success; expatiated on the civilities shown by the court of Lisbon to Columbus, on his late arrival there; and acknowledged the satisfaction felt by his master at the orders given to the admiral, to hold a western course from the Canaries, expressing a hope that the same course would be pursued in future, without interfering with the rights of Portugal by deviation to the south. This was the first occasion, on which the existence of such claims had been intimated by the Portuguese.

In the mean while, Ferdinand and Isabella received intelligence that King John was equipping a considerable armament in order to anticipate or defeat their discoveries in the west. They instantly sent one of their household, Don Lope de Herrera, as ambassador to Lisbon, with instructions to make their acknowledgments to the king for his hospitable reception of Columbus, accompanied with a request that he would prohibit his subjects from interference with the discoveries of the Spaniards in the west, in the same manner as these latter had been excluded from the Portuguese possessions in Africa. The ambassador was furnished with orders of a different import, provided he should find the reports correct, respecting the equipment and probable destination of a Portuguese armada. Instead of a conciliatory deportment, he was, in that case, to assume a tone of remonstrance, and to demand a full explanation from King John, of his designs. The cautious prince, who had received, through his secret agents in Castile, intelligence of these latter instructions, managed matters so discreetly as to give no occasion for their exercise. He abandoned, or at least postponed, his meditated expedition, in the hope of adjusting the dispute by negotiation, in which he excelled. In order to quiet the apprehensions of the Spanish court, he engaged to fit out no fleet from his dominions within sixty days; at the same time he sent a fresh mission to Barcelona, with directions to propose an amicable adjustment of the conflicting claims of the two nations, by making the parallel of the Canaries a line of partition between them; the right of discovery to the north being reserved to the Spaniards, and that to the south to the Portuguese. [24]

While this game of diplomacy was going on, the Castilian court availed itself of the interval afforded by its rival, to expedite preparations for the second voyage of discovery; which, through the personal activity of the admiral, and the facilities everywhere afforded him, were fully completed before the close of September. Instead of the reluctance, and indeed avowed disgust, which had been manifested by all classes to his former voyage, the only embarrassment now arose from the difficulty of selection among the multitude of competitors, who pressed to be enrolled in the present expedition. The reports and sanguine speculations of the first adventurers had inflamed the cupidity of many, which was still further heightened by the exhibition of the rich and curious products which Columbus had brought back with him, and by the popular belief that the new discoveries formed part of that gorgeous east,

"whose caverns teem With diamond flaming, and with seeds of gold,"

and which tradition and romance had alike invested with the supernatural splendors of enchantment. Many others were stimulated by the wild love of adventure, kindled in the long Moorish war, but which, now excluded from that career, sought other objects in the vast, untravelled regions of the New World. The complement of the fleet was originally fixed at twelve hundred souls, which, through importunity or various pretences of the applicants, was eventually swelled to fifteen hundred. Among these were many who enlisted without compensation, including several persons of rank, hidalgos, and members of the royal household. The whole squadron amounted to seventeen vessels, three of them of one hundred tons' burden each. With this gallant navy, Columbus, dropping down the Guadalquivir, took his departure from the bay of Cadiz, on the 25th of September, 1493; presenting a striking contrast to the melancholy plight, in which, but the year previous, he sallied forth like some forlorn knight-errant, on a desperate and chimerical enterprise. [25]

No sooner had the fleet weighed anchor, than Ferdinand and Isabella despatched an embassy in solemn state to advise the king of Portugal of it. This embassy was composed of two persons of distinguished rank, Don Pedro de Ayala, and Don Garci Lopez de Carbajal. Agreeably to their instructions, they represented to the Portuguese monarch the inadmissibility of his propositions respecting the boundary line of navigation; they argued that the grants of the Holy See, and the treaty with Spain in 1479, had reference merely to the actual possessions of Portugal, and the right of discovery by an eastern route along the coasts of Africa to the Indies; that these rights had been invariably respected by Spain; that the late voyage of Columbus struck into a directly opposite track; and that the several bulls of Pope Alexander the Sixth, prescribing the line of partition, not from east to west, but from the north to the south pole, were intended to secure to the Spaniards the exclusive right of discovery in the western ocean. The ambassadors concluded with offering, in the name of their sovereigns, to refer the whole matter in dispute to the arbitration of the court of Rome, or of any common umpire.

King John was deeply chagrined at learning the departure of the Spanish expedition. He saw that his rivals had been acting while he had been amused with negotiation. He at first threw out hints of an immediate rupture; and endeavored, it is said, to intimidate the Castilian ambassadors, by bringing them accidentally, as it were, in presence of a splendid array of cavalry, mounted and ready for immediate service. He vented his spleen on the embassy, by declaring, that "it was a mere abortion; having neither head nor feet;" alluding to the personal infirmity of Ayala, who was lame, and to the light, frivolous character of the other envoy. [26]

These symptoms of discontent were duly notified to the Spanish government; who commanded the superintendent, Fonseca, to keep a vigilant eye on the movements of the Portuguese, and, in case any hostile armament should quit their ports, to be in readiness to act against it with one double its force. King John, however, was too shrewd a prince to be drawn into so impolitic a measure as war with a powerful adversary, quite as likely to baffle him in the field, as in the council. Neither did he relish the suggestion of deciding the dispute by arbitration; since he well knew, that his claim rested on too unsound a basis, to authorize the expectation of a favorable award from any impartial umpire. He had already failed in an application for redress to the court of Rome, which answered him by reference to its bulls, recently published. In this emergency, he came to the resolution at last, which should have been first adopted, of deciding the matter by a fair and open conference. It was not until the following year, however, that his discontent so far subsided as to allow his acquiescence in this measure.

At length, commissioners named by the two crowns convened at Tordesillas, and on the 7th of June, 1494, subscribed articles of agreement, which were ratified, in the course of the same year, by the respective powers. In this treaty, the Spaniards were secured in the exclusive right of navigation and discovery in the western ocean. At the urgent remonstrance of the Portuguese, however, who complained that the papal line of demarcation cooped up their enterprises within too narrow limits, they consented, that instead of one hundred, it should be removed three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape de Verd islands, beyond which all discoveries should appertain to the Spanish nation. It was agreed that one or two caravels should be provided by each nation, to meet at the Grand Canary, and proceed due west, the appointed distance, with a number of scientific men on board, for the purpose of accurately determining the longitude; and if any lands should fall under the meridian, the direction of the line should be ascertained by the erection of beacons at suitable distances. The proposed meeting never took place. But the removal of the partition line was followed by important consequences to the Portuguese, who derived from it their pretensions to the noble empire of Brazil. [27]

Thus this singular misunderstanding, which menaced an open rupture at one time, was happily adjusted. Fortunately, the accomplishment of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, which occurred soon afterwards, led the Portuguese in an opposite direction to their Spanish rivals, their Brazilian possessions having too little attractions, at first, to turn them from the splendid path of discovery thrown open in the east. It was not many years, however, before the two nations, by pursuing opposite routes of circumnavigation, were brought into collision on the other side of the globe; a circumstance never contemplated, apparently, by the treaty of Tordesillas. Their mutual pretensions were founded, however, on the provisions of that treaty, which, as the reader is aware, was itself only supplementary to the original bull of demarcation of Alexander the Sixth. [28]

Thus this bold stretch of papal authority, so often ridiculed as chimerical and absurd, was in a measure justified by the event, since it did, in fact, determine the principles on which the vast extent of unappropriated empire in the eastern and western hemispheres was ultimately divided between two petty states of Europe.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 13.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 28.

[2] Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 15.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 116.--Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii. pp. 678, 679.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. fol. 315.--Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1492.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 4, dial. 9.

[3] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 125.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 116.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, ubi supra.

The great bell of Velilla, whose miraculous tolling always announced some disaster to the monarchy, was heard to strike at the time of this assault on Ferdinand, being the fifth time since the subversion of the kingdom by the Moors. The fourth was on the assassination of the inquisitor Arbues. All which is established by a score of good orthodox witnesses, as reported by Dr. Diego Dormer, in his Discursos Varies, pp. 206, 207.

[4] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 136.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 125, 127, 131.--Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 16.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., loc. cit.--Garibay, after harrowing the reader's feelings with half a column of inhuman cruelties inflicted on the miserable man, concludes with the comfortable assurance, "Pero abogaronle primero por clemencia y misericordia de la Reyna." (Compendio, tom. ii. lib. 19, cap. 1.)

A letter written by Isabella to her confessor, Fernando de Talavera, during her husband's illness, shows the deep anxiety of her own mind, as well as that of the citizens of Barcelona, at his critical situation, furnishing abundant evidence, if it were needed, of her tenderness of heart, and the warmth of her conjugal attachment. See Correspondencia Epistolar, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 13.

[5] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 2, cap. 3.--Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 4, sect. 13, 14.

Columbus concludes a letter addressed, on his arrival at Lisbon, to the treasurer Sanchez, in the following glowing terms; "Let processions be made, festivals held, temples be filled with branches and flowers, for Christ rejoices on earth as in Heaven, seeing the future redemption of souls. Let us rejoice, also, for the temporal benefit likely to result, not merely to Spain, but to all Christendom." See Primer Viage de Colon, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i.

[6] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 2, cap. 2.--Primer Viage de Colon, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 39.

The Portuguese historian, Faria y Sousa, appears to be nettled at the prosperous issue of the voyage; for he testily remarks, that "the admiral entered Lisbon with a vainglorious exultation, in order to make Portugal feel, by displaying the tokens of his discovery, how much she had erred in not acceding to his propositions." Europa Portuguesa, tom. ii. pp. 462, 463.

[7] My learned friend, Mr. John Pickering, has pointed out to me a passage in a Portuguese author, giving some particulars of Columbus's visit to Portugal. The passage, which I have not seen noticed by any writer, is extremely interesting, coming, as it does, from a person high in the royal confidence, and an eye-witness of what he relates. "In the year 1493, on the sixth day of March, arrived in Lisbon Christopher Columbus, an Italian, who came from the discovery, made under the authority of the sovereigns of Castile, of the islands of Cipango and Antilia; from which countries he brought with him the first specimens of the people, as well as of the gold and other things to be found there; and he was entitled admiral of them. The king, being forthwith informed of this, commanded him into his presence; and appeared to be annoyed and vexed, as well from the belief that the said discovery was made within the seas and boundaries of his seigniory of Guinea,--which might give rise to disputes,--as because the said admiral, having become somewhat haughty by his situation, and in the relation of his adventures always exceeding the bounds of truth, made this affair, as to gold, silver, and riches, much greater than it was. Especially did the king accuse himself of negligence, in having declined this enterprise, when Columbus first came to ask his assistance, from want of credit and confidence in it. And, notwithstanding the king was importuned to kill kim on the spot; since with his death the prosecution of the undertaking, so far as the sovereigns of Castile were concerned, would cease, from want of a suitable person to take charge of it; and notwithstanding this might be done without suspicion of the king's being privy to it,--for inasmuch as the admiral was overbearing and puffed up by his success, they could easily bring it about, that his own indiscretion should appear the occasion of his death,--yet the king, as he was a prince greatly fearing God, not only forbade this, but even showed the, admiral honor and much favor, and therewith dismissed him." Ruy de Pina, Chronica d'el Rei Dom Joaõ II., cap. 66, apud Collecçaõ de Livros Ineditos de Historia Portugueza, (Lisboa, 1790-93,) tom. ii.

[8] Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 40, 41.--Charlevoix, Histoire de S. Domingue, (Paris, 1730,) tom. i. pp. 84-90.--Primer Viage de Colon, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i.--La Clède, Hist. de Portugal, tom. iv. pp. 53-58.

Columbus sailed from Spain on Friday, discovered land on Friday, and re- entered the port of Palos on Friday. These curious coincidences should have sufficed, one might think, to dispel, especially with American mariners, the superstitions dread, still so prevalent, of commencing a voyage on that ominous day.

[9] Primer Viage de Colon, Let 2.

[10] Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 4, sec. 14.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 41.

Among other specimens, was a lump of gold, of sufficient magnitude to be fashioned into a vessel for containing the host; "thus," says Salazar de Mendoza, "converting the first fruits of the new dominions to pious uses." Monarquía, pp. 351, 352.

[11] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 133, 134, 140.--Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 118.--Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. pp. 141, 142.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, ubi supra.--Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 413.--Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 17.--Benzoni, Novi Orbis Hist., lib. 1, cap. 8, 9.--Gallo, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., tom. xxiii. p. 203.

[12] Herrera, Indias Occidental., tom. i. dec. 1, lib. 2, cap. 3.--Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 4, sec. 15, 16, 17.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, ubi supra.

[12] In a letter, written soon after the admiral's return, Martyr announces the discovery to his correspondent, Cardinal Sforza, in the following manner. "Mira res ex eo terrarum orbe, quem sol horarum quatuor et viginti spatio circuit, ad nostra usque tempora, quod minime te latet, trita cognitaque dimidia taptum pars, ab Aurea utpote Chersoneso, ad Gades nostras Hispanas, reliqua vero a cosmographis pro incognitâ relicta est. Et si quae mentio facta, ea tenuis et incerta. Nunc autem, o beatum facinus! meorum regum auspiciis, quod latuit hactenus a rerum primordio, intelligi coeptum est." In a subsequent epistle to the learned Pomponio Leto, he breaks out in a strain of warm and generous sentiment. "Prae laetitia prosiliisse te, vixque a lachrymis prae gaudio temperasse, quando literas adspexisti meas, quibus de Antipodum Orbe latenti hactenus, te certiorem feci, mi suavissime Pomponi, insinuasti. Ex tuis ipse literis colligo, quid senseris. Sensisti autem, tantique rem fecisti, quanti virum summâ doctrinâ insignitum decuit. Quis namque cibus sublimibus praestari potest ingeniis isto suavior? quod condimentum gravius? a me facio conjecturam. Beari sentio spiritus meos, quando accitos alloquor prudentes aliquos ex his qui ab eâ redeunt provinciâ. Implicent animos pecuniarum cumulis augendis miseri avari, libidinibus obscoeni; noetras nos mentes, postquam Deo pleni aliquandiu fuerimus, contemplando, hujuscemodi rerum notitiâ demulceamus." Opus Epist., epist. 124, 152.

[13] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 118.--Gallo, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., tom. xxiii. p. 203.--Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 18.

Peter Martyr seems to have received the popular inference, respecting the identity of the new discoveries with the East Indies, with some distrust. "Insulas reperit plures; has esse, de quibus fit apud cosmographos mentio extra Oceanum Orientalem, adjacentes Indiae arbitrantur. Nec inficior ego penitus, quamvis sphaerae magnitudo aliter sentire videatur; neque enim desunt qui parvo tractu a finibus Hispanis distare littus Indicum, putent." Opus Epist., epist. 135.

[14] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 2, cap. 3.--Benzoni, Novi Orbis Hist., lib. 1, cap. 8.--Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 17.-- Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 413.--Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, ubi supra.

He was permitted to quarter the royal arms with his own, which consisted of a group of golden islands amid azure billows. To these were afterwards added five anchors, with the celebrated motto, well known as being carved on his sepulchre. (See