Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery Part 18

It is supposed, however, that the decision was not reached without some reservation in the minds of certain of the reviewers, and that especially this was the case with Diego de Deza, who showed that the stress of the arguments advanced by Columbus had not been without result. This friar was tutor to Prince Juan, and it was not difficult for him to modify the emphatic denial of the judges. It was the pride of those who later erected the tombstone of Deza, in the cathedral at Seville, to inscribe upon it that he was the generous and faithful patron of Columbus. A temporizing policy was, therefore, adopted by the monarchs, and Columbus was informed that for the present the perils and expenses of the war called for an undivided attention, and that further consideration of his project must be deferred till the war was over. It was at Cordoba that this decision reached Columbus.

[Sidenote: Columbus goes to Seville; but is repelled.]

In his eagerness of hope he suspected that the judgment had received some adverse color in pa.s.sing through Talavera's mind, and so he hastened to Seville, but only to meet the same chilling repulse from the monarchs themselves. With dashed expectations he left the city, feeling that the instrumentality of Talavera, as Peter Martyr tells us, had turned the sovereigns against him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE.

[From Parcerisa and Quadrado's _Espana_.]]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATHEDRAL OF CORDOBA.

[From Parcerisa and Quadrado's _Espana_.]]

[Sidenote: Seeks the grandees of Spain.]

[Sidenote: Medina-Sidonia and Medina-Celi.]

Columbus now sought to engage the attention of some of the powerful grandees of Spain, who, though subjects, were almost autocratic in their own regions, serving the Crown not so much as va.s.sals as sympathetic helpers in its wars. They were depended upon to recruit the armies from their own trains and dependents; money came from their chests, provisions from their estates, and s.h.i.+ps from their own marine; their landed patrimonies, indeed, covered long stretches of the coast, whose harbors sheltered their considerable navies. Such were the dukes of Medina-Sidonia and Medina-Celi. Columbus found in them, however, the same wariness which he had experienced at the greater court. There was a willingness to listen; they found some lures in the great hopes of Eastern wealth which animated Columbus, but in the end there was the same disappointment. One of them, the Duke of Medina-Celi, at last adroitly parried the importunities of Columbus, by averring that the project deserved the royal patronage rather than his meaner aid. He, however, told the suitor, if a farther application should be made to the Crown at some more opportune moment, he would labor with the queen in its behalf. The duke kept his word, and we get much of what we know of his interest in Columbus from the information given by one of the duke's household to Las Casas. This differs so far as to make the duke, perhaps as Harrisse thinks in the spring of 1491, actually fit out some caravels for the use of Columbus; but when seeking a royal license, he was informed that the queen had determined to embark in the enterprise herself. Such a decision seems to carry this part of the story, at least, forward to a time when Columbus was summoned from Rabida.

[Sidenote: Columbus at Rabida.]

A consultation which now took place at the convent of Rabida affords particulars which the historians have found difficulty, as already stated, in keeping distinct from those of an earlier visit, if there was such. Columbus, according to the usual story, visited the convent apparently in October or November, 1491, with the purpose of reclaiming his son Diego, and taking him to Cordoba, where he might be left with Ferdinand in the charge of the latter's mother. Columbus himself intended to pa.s.s to France, to see if a letter, which had been received from the king of France, might possibly open the way to the fulfillment of his great hopes. It is represented that it was this expressed intention of abandoning Spain which aroused the patriotism of Marchena, who undertook to prevent the sacrifice.

[Sidenote: Marchena encourages him.]

[Sidenote: Talks with Pinzon.]

We derive what we know of his method of prevention from the testimony of Garcia Fernandez, the physician of Palos, who has been cited in respect to the alleged earlier visit. This witness says that he was summoned to Rabida to confer with Columbus. It is also made a part of the story that the head of a family of famous navigators in Palos, Martin Alonso Pinzon, was likewise drawn into the little company a.s.sembled by the friar to consider the new situation. Pinzon readily gave his adherence to the views of Columbus. It is claimed, however, that the presence of Pinzon is disproved by doc.u.ments showing him to have been in Rome at this time.

[Sidenote: Cousin's alleged voyage, 1488,]

[Sidenote: and Pinzon's supposed connection with it.]

An alleged voyage of Jean Cousin, in 1488, two years and more before this, from Dieppe to the coast of Brazil, is here brought in by certain French writers, like Estancelin and Gaffarel, as throwing some light on the intercourse of Columbus and Pinzon, later if not now. It must be acknowledged that few other than French writers have credited the voyage at all. Major, who gave the story careful examination, utterly discredits it. It is a part of the story that one Pinzon, a Castilian, accompanied Cousin as a pilot, and this man is identified by these French writers as the navigator who is now represented as yielding a ready credence to the views of Columbus, and for the reason that he knew more than he openly professed. They find in the later intercourse of Columbus and this Pinzon certain evidence of the estimation in which Columbus seemed to hold the practiced judgment, if not the knowledge, of Pinzon. This they think conspicuous in the yielding which Columbus made to Pinzon's opinion during Columbus's first voyage, in changing his course to the southwest, which is taken to have been due to a knowledge of Pinzon's former experience in pa.s.sing those seas in 1488. They trace to it the confidence of Pinzon in separating from the Admiral on the coast of Cuba, and in his seeking to antic.i.p.ate Columbus by an earlier arrival at Palos, on the return, as the reader will later learn. Thus it is ingeniously claimed that the pilot of Cousin and colleague of Columbus were one and the same person. It has hardly convinced other students than the French. When the Pinzon of the "Pinta" at a later day was striving to discredit the leaders.h.i.+p of Columbus, in the famous suit of the Admiral's heirs, he could hardly, for any reason which the French writers aver, have neglected so important a piece of evidence as the fact of the Cousin voyage and his connection with it, if there had been any truth in it.

[Sidenote: Pinzon aids Columbus,]

So we must be content, it is pretty clear, in charging Pinzon's conversion to the views of Columbus at Rabida upon the efficacy of Columbus's arguments. This success of Columbus brought some substantial fruit in the promise which Pinzon now made to bear the expenses of a renewed suit to Ferdinand and Isabella.

[Sidenote: and Rodriguez goes to Santa Fe, with a letter to the queen.]

[Sidenote: Marchena follows.]

[Sidenote: The queen invites Columbus once more.]

A conclusion to the deliberation of this little circle in the convent was soon reached. Columbus threw his cause into the hands of his friends, and agreed to rest quietly in the convent while they pressed his claims. Perez wrote a letter of supplication to the Queen, and it was dispatched by a respectable navigator of the neighborhood, Sebastian Rodriguez. He found the Queen in the city of Santa Fe, which had grown up in the military surroundings before the city of Granada, whose siege the Spanish armies were then pressing. The epistle was opportune, for it reenforced one which she had already received from the Duke of Medina-Celi, who had been faithful to his promise to Columbus, and who, judging from a letter which he wrote at a later day, March 19, 1493, took to himself not a little credit that he had thus been instrumental, as he thought, in preventing Columbus throwing himself into the service of France. The result was that the pilot took back to Rabida an intimation to Marchena that his presence would be welcome at Santa Fe.

So mounting his mule, after midnight, fourteen days after Rodriguez had departed, the friar followed the pilot's tracks, which took him through some of the regions already conquered from the Moors, and, reaching the Court, presented himself before the Queen. Perez is said to have found a seconder in Luis de Santangel, a fiscal officer of Aragon, and in the Marchioness of Moya, one of the ladies of the household. The friar is thought to have urged his pet.i.tion so strongly that the Queen, who had all along been more open to the representations of Columbus than Ferdinand had been, finally determined to listen once more to the Genoese's appeals.

[Sidenote: Columbus reaches Santa Fe, December, 1491.]

[Sidenote: Quintanilla and Mendoza.]

Learning of the poor plight of Columbus, she ordered a gratuity to be sent to him, to restore his wardrobe and to furnish himself with the conveniences of the journey. Perez, having borne back the happy news, again returned to the Court, with Columbus under his protection. Thus once more buoyed in hope, and suitably arrayed for appearing at Court, Columbus, on his mule, early in December, 1491, rode into the camp at Santa Fe, where he was received and provided with lodgings by the accountant-general. This officer was one whom he had occasion happily to remember, Alonso de Quintanilla, through whose offices it was, in the end, that the Grand Cardinal of Spain, Mendoza, was at this time brought into sympathy with the Genoese aspirant.

[Sidenote: Boabdil the younger submits.]

[Sidenote: The Moorish wars end.]

Military events were still too imposing, however, for any immediate attention to his projects, and he looked on with admiration and a reserved expectancy, while the grand parade of the final submission of Boabdil the younger, the last of the Moorish kings, took place, and a long procession of the magnificence of Spain moved forward from the beleaguering camp to receive the keys of the Alhambra. Wars succeeding wars for nearly eight centuries had now come to an end. The Christian banner of Spain floated over the Moorish palace. The kingdom was alive in all its provinces. Congratulation and jubilation, with glitter and vauntings, pervaded the air.

[Sidenote: Talavera and Columbus.]

Few observed the humble Genoese who stood waiting the sovereigns'

pleasure during all this tumult of joy; but he was not forgotten. They remembered, as he did, the promise given him at Seville. The war was over, and the time was come. Talavera had by this time gone so far towards an appreciation of Columbus's views that Peter Martyr tells him, at a later day, that the project would not have succeeded without him.

He was directed to confer with the expectant dreamer, and Cardinal Mendoza became prominent in the negotiations.

Columbus's position was thus changed. He had been a suitor. He was now sought. He had been persuaded from his purposed visit to France, in order that he might by his plans rehabilitate Spain with a new glory, complemental to her martial pride. This view as presented by Perez to Isabella had been accepted, and Columbus was summoned to present his case.

[Sidenote: The mistake of Columbus.]

Here, when he seemed at last to be on the verge of success, the poor man, unused to good fortune, and mistaking its token, repeated the mistake which had driven him an outcast from Portugal. His arrogant spirit led him to magnify his importance before he had proved it; and he failed in the modesty which marks a conquering spirit.

True science places no gratulations higher than those of its own conscience. Copernicus was at this moment delving into the secrets of nature like a n.o.bleman of the universe. So he stands for all time in lofty contrast to the plebeian nature and sordid cravings of his contemporary.

[Sidenote: His pretensions.]

When, at the very outset of the negotiations, Talavera found this uplifted suitor making demands that belonged rather to proved success than to a contingent one, there was little prospect of accommodation, unless one side or the other should abandon its position. If Columbus's own words count for anything, he was conscious of being a laughing-stock, while he was making claims for office and emoluments that would mortgage the power of a kingdom. A dramatic instinct has in many minds saved Columbus from the critical estimate of such presumption. Irving and the French canonizers dwell on what strikes them as constancy of purpose and loftiness of spirit. They marvel that poverty, neglect, ridicule, contumely, and disappointment had not dwarfed his spirit. This is the vulgar liking for the hero who is without heroism, and the martyr who makes a trade of it. The honest historian has another purpose. He tries to gauge pretense by wisdom.

Columbus was indeed to succeed; but his success was an error in geography, and a failure in policy and in morals. The Crown was yet to succ.u.mb; but its submission was to entail miseries upon Columbus and his line, and a reproach upon Spain. The outcome to Columbus and to Spain is the direst comment of all.

Columbus would not abate one jot of his pretensions, and an end was put to the negotiations. Making up his mind to carry his suit to France, he left Cordoba on his mule, in the beginning of February, 1492.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FINAL AGREEMENT AND THE FIRST VOYAGE, 1492.

[Sidenote: Columbus leaves the Court.]

Columbus, a disheartened wanderer, with his back turned on the Spanish Court, his mule plodding the road to Cordoba, offered a sad picture to the few adherents whom he had left behind. They had grown to have his grasp of confidence, but lacked his spirit to clothe an experimental service with all the certainties of an accomplished fact.

[Sidenote: The Queen relents.]

The sight of the departing theorist abandoning the country, and going to seek countenance at rival courts, stirred the Spanish pride. He and his friends had, in mutual counsels, pictured the realms of the Indies made tributary to the Spanish fame. It was this conception of a chance so near fruition, and now vanis.h.i.+ng, that moved Luis de Santangel and Alonso de Quintanilla to determine on one last effort. They immediately sought the Queen. In an audience the two advocates presented the case anew, appealing to the royal ambition, to the opportunity of spreading her holy religion, to the occasions of replenis.h.i.+ng her treasure-chests, emptied by the war, and to every other impulse, whether of pride or patriotism. The trivial cost and risk were contrasted with the glowing possibilities. They repeated the offer of Columbus to share an eighth of the expense. They pictured her caravels, fitted out at a cost of not more than 3,000,000 crowns, bearing the banner of Spain to these regions of opulence. The vision, once fixed in the royal eye, spread under their warmth of description, into succeeding glimpses of increasing splendor.

Finally the warmth and glory of an almost realized expectancy filled the Queen's cabinet.

The conquest was made. The royal companion, the Marchioness of Moya, saw and encouraged the kindling enthusiasm of Isabella; but a shade came over the Queen's face. The others knew it was the thought of Ferdinand's aloofness. The warrior of Aragon, with new conquests to regulate, with a treasury drained almost to the last penny, would have little heart for an undertaking in which his enthusiasm, if existing at all, had always been dull as compared with hers. She solved the difficulty in a flash.