The Life of Columbus Part 15

The complaints of the admiral, that he had no news from court, are quite touching. He says, he desires to hear news each hour. Couriers are arriving every day, but none for him: his very hair stands on end to hear things so contrary to what his soul desires. He alludes, I imagine, to the state of the Queen's health; for, in a memorandum of instructions to his son, written at this period, the first thing, he says, to be done is, "to commend affectionately, with much devotion," the soul of the Queen to G.o.d.

Could the poor Indians but have known what a friend to them was dying, one continued wail would have gone up to heaven from Hispaniola and all the western islands. The dread decree, however, had gone forth, and on the 26th of November, 1504, it was only a prayer for the departed that could have been addressed; for the great Queen was no more. If it be permitted to departing spirits to see those places on earth they yearn much after, we might imagine that the soul of Isabella would give "one longing, lingering look" to the far West.

OPPRESSION OF THE INDIANS.

And if so, what did she see there? How different was the aspect of things from what governors and officers of all kinds had told her: how different from aught that she had thought of, or commanded! She had insisted that the Indians were to be free: she would have seen their condition to be that of slaves. She had declared that they were to have spiritual instruction: she would have seen them less instructed than the dogs. She had ordered that they should receive payment for their labour: she would have found that all they received was a mockery of wages, just enough to purchase once, perhaps, in the course of the year, some childish trifles from Castile. She had always directed that they should have kind treatment and proper maintenance: she would have seen them literally watching under the tables of their masters, to catch the crumbs which fell there. She would have beheld the Indian labouring at the mine under cruel buffetings, his family, neglected, peris.h.i.+ng, or enslaved. She would have marked him on his return, after eight months of dire toil, enter a place which knew him not, or a household that could only sorrow over the gaunt creature who had returned to them, and mingle their sorrows with his; or, still more sad, she would have seen Indians who had been brought from far distant homes, linger at the mines, too hopeless, or too careless, to return.

PEt.i.tIONS OF COLUMBUS; INJUSTICE OF THE KING.

Turning from what might have been seen by Queen Isabella, had her departing gaze pierced to the outskirts of her dominions, we have to record the closing scene of the strange eventful history of Columbus, who did not long survive his benefactress. Ever since his return from his fourth voyage to the Indies, he had done little else than memorialize, and pet.i.tion, and negotiate about his rights. But Ferdinand, who had always looked coldly on his projects, was disposed to regard his claims with still less favour. Columbus professed himself willing to sacrifice the arrears of revenue due to him, but urged strenuously his demand that his son Diego should be made viceroy of the Indies, in accordance with the terms of the grant making that dignity hereditary in his family. Ferdinand did not refuse absolutely: the breach of faith would have been too flagrant. But he procrastinated, and ended by referring the matter to the significantly named Board of Discharges of the Royal Conscience, which board regulated its proceedings by the known wishes of the king, and procrastinated too.

The proverb, "Fear old age, for it does not come alone," was especially applicable to Columbus, while suffering sickness without the elasticity to bear it, poverty with high station and debt, and all the delay of suitors.h.i.+p, not at the beginning, but at the close, of a career. A similar decline of fortune is to be seen in the lives of many men; of those, too, who have been most adventurous and successful in their prime. Their fortunes grow old and feeble with themselves; and those clouds, which were but white and scattered during the vigour of the day, sink down together, stormful and ma.s.sive, in huge black lines, across the setting sun.

DEATH OF COLUMBUS

Shortly after the arrival of Philip and his queen in Spain, Columbus had written to their Highnesses, deploring his inability to come to them, through illness, and saying that, notwithstanding his pitiless disease (the gout), he could yet do them service the like of which had not been seen. Perhaps he meant service in the way of good advice touching the administration of the Indies; perhaps, for he was of an indomitable spirit, that he could yet make more voyages of discovery. But there was then only left for him that voyage in which the peasant who has seen but the little district round his home, and the great travellers in thought and deed, are alike to find themselves upon the unknown waters of further life. Looked at in this way, what a great discoverer each of us is to be!

But we must not linger too long, even at the deathbed of a hero. Having received all the sacraments of the Church, and uttering as his last words, "In ma.n.u.s tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum," Columbus died, at Valladolid, on Ascension Day, the 20th of May, 1506. His remains were carried to Seville and buried in the monastery of Las Cuevas; afterwards they were removed to the cathedral at St. Domingo; and, in modern times, were taken to the cathedral at Havana, where they now rest.

THE END.