Chapter 3 Columbus in Spain.

Columbus, disgusted at the treatment he had received from the Portuguese Court, quitted Lisbon for Spain, probably in the year 1485, with his son Diego, the only issue of his marriage with Donna Felipa, now no longer living. Here he addressed himself to the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and to the Duke of Medina Celi, whose extensive possessions along the coasts of Spain were likely to incline them in favour of a maritime expedition.

There is some uncertainty as to the degree of encouragement which he received from them; but long afterwards, when Columbus had succeeded, the Duke of Medina Celi wrote to the Cardinal of Spain showing that he (the duke) had maintained Columbus two years in his house, and was ready to have undertaken the enterprise, but that he saw it was one for the queen herself, and even then he wished to have had a part in it. Probably, any man in whose house Columbus resided for two years would have caught some portion of his enthusiasm, and have been ready to take up his project. It may be conjectured, however, that none of the nobles of the Spanish court would have been likely to undertake the matter without some sanction from the king or queen.

LETTER TO QUEEN ISABELLA.

To the queen, accordingly, the Duke of Medina Celi addressed a letter, of which Columbus was himself the bearer, commending his enterprise to the royal favour. But the juncture was singularly inopportune for the consideration of any peaceful project. The war with the Moors was raging more and more furiously, as they were driven back, contesting every inch of ground, farther and farther from the heart of the kingdom. The court was now at Cordova, actively preparing for the campaign which was to result in that subjugation of the crescent to the cross, throughout the Peninsula, which was completed by the conquest of Granada some six years later. Amid the clang of arms and the bustle of warlike preparation, Columbus was not likely to obtain more than a slight and superficial attention to a matter which must have seemed remote and uncertain. Indeed, when it is considered that the most pressing internal affairs of kingdoms are neglected by the wisest rulers in times of war, it is wonderful that he succeeded in obtaining any audience at all.

COLUMBUS AT COURT; JUNTA OF COSMOGRAPHERS; DECISION OF THE JUNTA.

However, he was fortunate enough to find at once a friend in the Treasurer of the Household, Alonso de Quintanilla, a man who, like himself, "took delight in great things," and who obtained a hearing for him from the Spanish monarchs. Ferdinand and Isabella did not dismiss him abruptly. On the contrary, it is said, they listened kindly; and the conference ended by their referring the business to the Queen's Confessor, Fra Hernando de Talavera, who was afterwards Archbishop of Granada. This important functionary summoned a junta of cosmographers (not a promising assemblage!) to consult about the affair, and this junta was convened at Salamanca, in the summer of the year 1487. Here was a step gained; the cosmographers were to consider his scheme, and not merely to consider whether it was worth taking into consideration. But it was impossible for the jury to be unprejudiced. All inventors, to a certain extent, insult their contemporaries by accusing them of stupidity and of ignorance. And the cosmographical pedants, accustomed to beaten tracks, resented the insult by which this adventurer was attempting to overthrow the belief of centuries. They thought that so many persons wise in nautical matters as had preceded the Genoese mariner never could have overlooked such an idea as this which had presented itself to his mind. Moreover, as the learning of the middle ages resided for the most part in the cloister, the member's of the junta were principally clerical, and combined to crush Columbus with theological objections. Texts of Scripture were adduced to refute his theory of the spherical shape of the earth, and the weighty authority of the Fathers of the Church was added to overthrow the "foolish idea of the existence of antipodes; of people who walk, opposite to us, with their heels upwards and their heads hanging down; where everything is topsy turvy, where the trees grow with their branches downwards, and where it rains, hails, and snows upwards." King David, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Lactantius, and a host of other theological authorities were all put in evidence against the Genoese mariner: he was confronted by the "conservatism of lawyers united to the bigotry of priests." Las Casas displays his usual acuteness when he says that the great difficulty of Columbus was, not that of teaching, but that of unteaching: not of promulgating his own theory, but of eradicating the erroneous convictions of the judges before whom he had to plead his cause. In fine, the junta decided that the project was "vain and impossible, and that it did not belong to the majesty of such great princes to determine anything upon such weak grounds of information."

Ferdinand and Isabella seem not to have taken the extremely unfavourable view of the matter entertained by the junta of cosmographers, or at least to have been willing to dismiss Columbus gently, for they merely said that, with the wars at present on their hands, and especially that of Granada, they could not undertake any new expenses, but when that war was ended, they would examine his plan more carefully.

TEDIOUNESS OF COLUMBUS'S SUIT

Thus terminated a solicitation at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella which, according to some authorities, lasted five years; for the facts above mentioned, though short in narration, occupied no little time in transaction. During the whole of this period, Columbus appears to have followed the sovereigns in the movements which the war necessitated, and to have been treated by them with much consideration. Sums were from time to time granted from the royal treasury for his private expenses, and he was billeted as a public functionary in the various towns of Andalusia, where the court rested. But his must have been a very up-hill task. Las Casas, who, from an experience larger even than that which fell to the lot of Columbus, knew what it was to endure the cold and indolent neglect of superficial men in small authority, and all the vast delay, which cannot be comprehended except by those who have suffered under it, that belongs to the transaction of any affair in which many persons have to cooperate, compares the suit of Columbus to a battle, "a terrible, continuous, painful, prolix battle." The tide of this long war (for war it was, rather than a battle) having turned against him, Columbus left the court, and went to Seville "with much sadness and discomfiture." During this dreary period of a suitor's life-which, however, has been endured by some of the greatest men the world has seen, which was well known by close observation, or bitter experience, to Spenser, Camoens, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Bacon-one joy at least was not untasted by Columbus, namely, that of love. His beloved Beatrice, whom he first met at Cordova, must have believed in him, even if no one else had done so; but love was not sufficient to retain at her side a man goaded by a great idea, or perhaps that love did but impel him to still greater efforts for her sake, as is the way with lovers of the nobler sort.

ENCOURAGEMENT OF FRIENDS; GARCIA HERNANDEZ.

Other friends, too, shared his enthusiasm, and urged him onward. Juan Perez de la Marchena, guardian of the monastery of La Rabida, in Andalusia, had been the confessor of Queen Isabella, but had exchanged the bustle of the court for the learned leisure of the cloister. The little town of Palos, with its seafaring population and maritime interests, was near the monastery, and the principal men of the place were glad to pass the long winter evenings in the society of Juan Perez, discussing questions of cosmography and astronomy. Among these visitors were Martin Alonzo Pinzon, the chief shipowner of Palos, and Garcia Hernandez, the village doctor; and one can fancy how the schemes of Columbus must have appeared to the little conclave as a ray of sunlight in the dulness of their simple life. Hernandez, especially, who seems to have been somewhat skilled in physical science, and therefore capable of appreciating the arguments of Columbus, became a warm believer in his project. It is worthy of notice that a person who appears only once, as it were, in a sentence in history, should have exercised so much influence upon it as Garcia Hernandez, who was probably a man of far superior attainments to those around him, and was in the habit of deploring, as such men do, his hard lot in being placed where he could be so little understood. Now, however, he was to do more at one stroke than many a man who has been all his days before the world. Columbus had abandoned his suit at court in disgust, and had arrived at the monastery before quitting Spain to fetch his son Diego, whom he had left with Juan Perez to be educated. All his griefs and struggles he confided to Perez, who could not bear to hear of his intention to leave the country for France or England, and to make a foreign nation greater by allowing it to adopt his project. The three friends-the monk, the learned physician, and the skilled cosmographer-discussed together the propositions so unhappily familiar to the last named member of their little council. The affection of Juan Perez and the learning of Hernandez were not slow to follow in the track which the enthusiasm of the great adventurer made out before them; and they became, no doubt, as convinced as Columbus himself of the feasibility of his undertaking. The difficulty, however, was not in becoming believers themselves, but in persuading those to believe who would have power to further the enterprise.

PEREZ WRITES TO THE QUEEN.

Their discussions upon this point ended in the conclusion that Juan Perez, who was known to the queen, having acted as her confessor, should write to her highness. He did so; and the result was favourable. The queen sent for him, heard what he had to say, and in consequence remitted money to Columbus to enable him to come to Court and renew his suit.

COLUMBUS'S CONDITIONS.

He attended the court again; his negotiations were resumed, but were again broken off on the ground of the largeness of the conditions which he asked for. His opponents said that these conditions were too large if he succeeded, and if he should not succeed and the conditions should come to nothing, they thought that there was an air of trifling in granting such conditions at all. And, indeed, they wore very large; namely, that he was to be made an admiral at once, to be appointed viceroy of the countries he should discover, and to have an eighth of the profits of the expedition. The only probable way of accounting for the extent of these demands and his perseverance in making them, even to the risk of total failure, is that the discovering of the Indies was but a step in his mind to greater undertakings, as they seemed to him, which he had in view, of going to Jerusalem with an army and making another crusade. For Columbus carried the chivalrous ideas of the twelfth century into the somewhat self-seeking fifteenth. The negotiation, however, failed a second time, and Columbus resolved again to go to France, when Alonzo de Quintanilla and Juan Perez contrived to obtain a hearing for the great adventurer from Cardinal Mendoza, who was pleased with him. Columbus then offered, in order to meet the objections of his opponents, to pay an eighth part of the expense of the expedition. Still nothing was done.

SANTANGLE'S ADDRESS.

And now, finally, Columbus determined to go to France, and indeed had actually set off one day in January of the year 1492, when Luis de Santangel, receiver of the ecclesiastical revenues of the crown of Aragon, a person much devoted to the plans of Columbus, addressed the queen with all the energy that a man throws into his words when he is aware that it is his last time for speaking in favour of a thing which he has much at heart. He told her that he wondered that, as she always had a lofty mind for great things, it should be wanting to her on this occasion. He endeavoured to pique her jealousy as a monarch, by suggesting that the enterprise might fall into the hands of other princes. Then he said something in behalf of Columbus himself, and the queen was not unlikely to know well the bearing of a great man. He intimated to her highness that what was an impossibility to the cosmographers, might not be so in nature. Nor, continued he, should any endeavour in so great a matter be attributed to lightness, even though the endeavour should fail; for it is the part of great and generous princes to ascertain the secrets of the world. Other princes (he did not mention those of neighbouring Portugal) had gained eternal fame this way. He concluded by saying that all the aid Columbus wanted to set the expedition afloat, was but a million of maravedis (equivalent to about 308 Pounds, English money of the period); and that so great an enterprise ought not to be abandoned for the sake of such a trifling sum.

SUCCESS OF THE ADDRESS.

These well addressed arguments, falling in, as they did, with those of Quintanilla, the treasurer, who had great influence with the queen, prevailed. She thanked these lords for their counsel, and said she would adopt it, but they must wait until the finances had recovered a little from the drain upon them occasioned by the conquest of Granada, or if they thought that the plan must be forthwith carried out, she would pledge her jewels to raise the necessary funds. Santangel and Quintanilla kissed her hands, highly delighted at succeeding; and Santangel offered to advance the money required. Upon this the queen sent an alguazil to overtake Columbus and bring him back to the court. He was overtaken at the bridge of Pinos, two leagues from Granada; returned to Santa Fe, where the sovereigns were encamped before Granada; was well received by Isabella; and finally the agreement between him and their catholic highnesses was settled with the secretary, Colama.

THE AGREEMENT SETTLED.

Not much is seen of King Ferdinand in all these proceedings; and it is generally understood that he looked rather coldly upon the propositions of Columbus. We cannot say that he was at all unwise in so doing. His great compeer, Henry the Seventh, did not hasten to adopt the same project submitted to him by Bartholomew Columbus, sent into England[8] for that purpose by his brother Christopher; and it has not been thought to derogate from the English king's sagacity.

[Footnote 8: It is difficult to determine how the project brought before Henry the Seventh's notice by Bartholomew Columbus was received. Some say it was made a mockery of at the English court; others speak of it as actually accepted. Lord Bacon states that Bartholomew was taken by pirates on his voyage to England, which delayed him so much that "before he had obtained a capitulation with the king for his brother, the enterprise by him was achieved." It is probable that Henry listened with interest to Bartholomew Columbus, who was a man of much intelligence and great maritime knowledge. But it seems unlikely that the negotiation went very far, considering the rigid manner in which Columbus insisted upon his exact conditions being accepted by the Spanish court. No such bargain, at a distance, with a reserved and parsimonious monarch, was likely, therefore, to have been concluded. It appears, however, from a despatch from the Spanish ambassador to his sovereigns, dated the 25th July, 1498, that the English were not behind other nations in a thirst for discovery, "Merchants of Bristol," he says, "have for the last seven years sent out annually some ships in search of the island of Brazil and the Seven Cities." If this assertion is accurate, England must have anticipated Spain in the search for, though not in the discovery of, the western world.]

FATE OF PROJECTORS' PLANS.

Those who govern are in all ages surrounded by projectors, and have to clear the way about them as well as they can, and to take care that they get time and room for managing their own immediate affairs. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if good plans should sometimes share the fate which ought to attend, and must attend, the great mass of all projects submitted to men in power. Here, however the ultimate event would justify the monarch's caution; for it would be hard to prove that Spain has derived aught but a golden weakness from her splendid discoveries and possessions in the new world.

FERDINAND'S COLDNESS.

Moreover, the characters of the two men being essentially opposed, it is probable that Ferdinand felt something like contempt for the uncontrolled enthusiasm of Columbus; and, upon the whole, it is rather to be wondered that the king consented to give the powers he did, than that he did not do more. Had it been a matter which concerned his own kingdom of Aragon, he might not have gone so far; but the expenses were to be eventually charged on Castille, and perhaps he looked upon the whole affair as another instance of Isabella's good natured sympathy with enthusiasts. His own cool and wary nature must have distrusted this "pauper pilot, promising rich realms." [9]

[Footnote 9: "Nudo nocchier, promettitor di regni:"-Chiabrea.]

COLUMBUS'S AGREEMENT WITH THE COURT OF SPAIN.

The agreement between Columbus and their Catholic highnesses is to the following effect:-

The favours which Christopher Columbus has asked from the King and Queen of Spain in recompense of the discoveries which he has made in the ocean seas, and as recompense for the voyage which he is about to undertake, are the following:-

1. He wishes to be made admiral of the seas and countries which he is about to discover. He desires to hold this dignity during his life, and that it should descend to his heirs.

This request is granted by the king and queen.

2. Christopher Columbus wishes to be made viceroy of all the continents and islands.

Granted by the king and queen.

3. He wishes to have a share, amounting to a tenth part, of the profits of all merchandise, be it pearls, jewels, or any other things, that may be found, gained, bought, or exported from the countries which he is to discover.

Granted by the king and queen.

4. He wishes, in his quality of admiral, to be made sole judge of all mercantile matters that may be the occasion of dispute in the countries which he is to discover.

Granted by the king and queen, on the condition, however, that this

jurisdiction should belong to the office of admiral, as held by Don

Enriquez and other admirals.

5. Christopher Columbus wishes to have the right to contribute the eighth part of the expenses of all ships which traffic with the new countries, and in return to earn the eighth part of the profits.

Granted by the king and queen.

Santa Fe, in the Vega of Granada,

April 17, 1492.

This agreement is signed by the Secretary Coloma and written by Almazan.

Then there is a sort of passport or commendatory letter intended for presentation to the Grand Khan, Prester John, or any other oriental potentate at whose territories Columbus might arrive:-

FERDINAND AND ISABELLA TO KING- The sovereigns have heard that he and his subjects entertain great love for them and for Spain. They are moreover informed that he and his subjects very much[10] wish to hear news from Spain; and send, therefore, their admiral, Ch. Columbus, who will tell them that they are in good health and perfect prosperity.

Granada, April 30, 1492.

[Footnote 10: This crediting the unknown ruler with an anxiety for the welfare of the Spanish sovereigns is really a delicious piece of diplomatic affectation.]

COLUMBUS GOES TO PALOS.

Armed with these royal commissions, Columbus left the court for Palos; and we may be sure that the knot of friends at the monastery were sufficiently demonstrative in their delight at the scheme on which they had pinned their faith being fairly launched. There was no delay in furnishing the funds for the expedition. From an entry in an account-book belonging to the Bishopric of Palencia, it appears that one million one hundred and forty thousand maravedis were advanced by Santangel in May, 1492, "being the sum he lent for paying the caravels which their highnesses ordered to go as the armada to the Indies, and for paying Christopher Columbus, who goes in the said armada." The town of Palos was ordered to provide two vessels.[11]

[Footnote 11: The requisition to the municipality of Palos runs thus: "In consequence of the offence which we received at your hands, you were condemned by our council to render us the service of two caravels, armed, at your own expense, for the space of twelve months, whenever and wherever it should be our pleasure to demand the same:" (30th April, 1492.) A proclamation of immunity from civil and criminal process to persons taking service in the expedition was issued at the same time. The ship of Columbus was, therefore, a refuge for criminals and runaway debtors, a cave of Adullam for the discontented and the desperate. To have to deal with such a community was not of the least of Columbus's difficulties.]

ORDER TO PRESS MEN.

But there was still a weighty difficulty to be surmounted. It was no easy matter to obtain crews for such an expedition. The sovereigns issued an order authorizing Columbus to press men into the service, but still the numbers were incomplete, for the mariners of Palos held aloof, unwilling to risk their lives in what seemed to them the crazy project of a monomaniac. But Juan Perez was active in persuading men to embark. The Pinzons, rich men and skilful mariners of Palos, joined in the undertaking personally, and aided it with their money, and, by these united exertions, three vessels were manned with ninety mariners, and provisioned for a year.

CHARACTER OF VESSELS AND CREWS.

The vessels were all of small size, probably of not more than one hundred tons' burden each, and, therefore, not larger than the American yachts, whose ocean race from New York to Cowes was regarded as an example of immense hardihood, even in the year 1867. But Columbus considered them very suitable for the undertaking. The Santa Maria, which Columbus himself commanded, was the only one of the three that was decked throughout. The official persons and the crew on board her were sixteen in number. The two other vessels were of the class called caravels, and were decked fore and aft, but not amidships, the stem and the stern being built so as to rise high out of the water. One of them, the "Pinta," was manned by a crew of thirty, commanded by Martin Alonzo Pinzon. The other, the "Nina," had Vincent Yanez Pinzon for captain, and a crew of twenty-four men. The whole number of adventurers amounted to a hundred and twenty persons, men of various nationalities, including, by the way, among them, two natives of the British Isles.