SPAIN, 1500, 1501. A CORDIAL RECEPTION IN SPAIN-COLUMBUS FAVORABLY RECEIVED AT COURT--NEWINTEREST IN GEOGRAPHICAL1 DISCOVERY--HIS PLANS FORTHE REDEMPTION OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE-PREPARATIONS FOR A FOURTH EXPEDITION.
Columbus was right in insisting on wearing his chains. They becamerather an ornament2 than a disgrace. So soon as it was announced in Spainthat the great discoverer had been so treated by Bobadilla, a wave ofpopular indignation swept through the people and reached the court.
Ferdinand and Isabella, themselves, had never intended to give suchpowers to their favorite, that he should disgrace a man so much hissuperior.
They instantly sent orders to Cadiz that Columbus should be receivedwith all honor. So soon as he arrived he had been able to send, to DonaJuana de la Torre, a lady high in favor at court, a private letter, in which hemade a proud defense3 of himself. This letter is still preserved, and it is ofthe first interest, as showing his own character, and as showing what werethe real hardships which he had undergone.
The Lady Juana read this letter to Isabella. Her own indignation, whichprobably had been kindled4 by the general news that Columbus had beenchained, rose to the highest. She received him, therefore, when he arrivedat court, with all the more cordiality. Ferdinand was either obliged topretend to join with her in her indignation, or he had really felt distressedby the behavior of his subordinate.
They did not wait for any documents from Bobadilla. As has been said,they wrote cordially to Columbus; they also ordered that two thousandducats should be paid him for his expenses, and they bade him appear atGrenada at court. He did appear there on the seventeenth of December,attended by an honorable retinue5, and in the proper costume of agentleman in favor with the king and queen.
When the queen met him she was moved to tears, and Columbus,finding himself so kindly6 received, threw himself upon his knees. For some time he could not express himself except by tears and sobs7. Hissovereigns raised him from the ground and encouraged him by graciouswords. So soon as he recovered his self-possession he made such anaddress as he had occasion to make more than once in his life, and showedthe eloquence8 which is possible to a man of affairs. He could well boast ofhis loyalty9 to the Spanish crown; and he might well say that, whether hewere or were not experienced in government, he had been surrounded bysuch difficulties in administration as hardly any other man had had to gothrough. But really, it was hardly necessary that he should vindicatehimself.
The stupidity of his enemies, had injured their cause more than anycarelessness of Columbus could have done. The sovereigns expressed theirindignation at Bobadilla's proceedings10, and, indeed, declared at once thathe should be dismissed from command. They never took any public noticeof the charges which he had sent home; on the other hand, they receivedColumbus with dignity and favor, and assured him that he should bereinstated in all his privileges.
The time at which he arrived was, in a certain sense, favorable for hisfuture plans, so far as he had formed any. On the other hand, the conditionof affairs was wholly changed from what it was when he began his greatdiscoveries, and the changes were in some degree unfavorable. Vasco daGama had succeeded in the great enterprise by which he had doubled theCape of Good Hope, had arrived at the Indies by the route of the Indianocean, and his squadron had successfully returned.
This great adventure, with the commercial and other results whichwould certainly follow it, had quickened the mind of all Europe, as thediscovery by Columbus had quickened it eight years before. So far, anyplan for the discoveries over which Columbus was always brooding,would be favorably received. But, on the other hand, in eight years sincethe first voyage, a large body of skillful adventurers had entered upon thecareer which then no one chose to share with him. The Pinzon brotherswere among these; Ojeda, already known to the reader, was another; andVespucci, as the reader knows, an intelligent and wise student, hadengaged himself in such discoveries.
The rumors11 of the voyages of the Cabots, much farther north thanthose made by Columbus, had gone through all Europe. In a word,Columbus was now only one of several skilful12 pilots and voyagers, and hisplans were to be considered side by side with those which were comingforward almost every day, for new discoveries, either by the eastern route,of which Vasco da Gama had shown the practicability, or by the westernroute, which Columbus himself had first essayed.
It is to be remembered, as well, that Columbus was now an old man,and, whatever were his successes as a discoverer, he had not succeeded asa commander. There might have been reasons for his failure; but failure isfailure, and men do not accord to an unsuccessful leader the honors whichthey are ready to give to a successful discoverer. When, therefore, heoffered his new plans at court, he should have been well aware that theycould not be received, as if he were the only one who could makesuggestions. Probably he was aware of this. He was also obliged, whetherhe would or would not, to give up the idea that he was to be thecommander of the regions which he discovered.
It had been easy enough to grant him this command before there wasso much as an inch of land known, over which it would make him themaster. But now that it was known that large islands, and probably a partof the continent of Asia, were to be submitted to his sway if he had it,there was every reason why the sovereigns should be unwilling13 tomaintain for him the broad rights which they had been willing to givewhen a scratch of the pen was all that was needful to give them.
Bobadilla was recalled; so far well. But neither Ferdinand nor Isabellachose to place Columbus again in his command. They did choose DonNicola Ovando, a younger man, to take the place of Bobadilla, to send himhome, and to take the charge of the colony.
From the colony itself, the worst accounts were received. If Columbusand his brother had failed, Bobadilla had failed more disgracefully. Indeed,he had begun by the policy of King Log, as an improvement on the policyof King Stork14. He had favored all rebels, he had pardoned them, he hadeven paid them for the time which they had spent in rebellion; and thenatural result was utter disorder15 and license16.
It does not appear that he was a bad man; he was a man wholly unusedto command; he was an imprudent man, and was weak. He hadcompromised the crown by the easy terms on which he had rented andsold estates; he had been obliged, in order to maintain the revenue, towork the natives with more severity than ever. He knew very well that thesystem, under which he was working could not last long. One of hismaxims was, "Do the best with your time," and he was constantlysacrificing future advantages for such present results as he could achieve.
The Indians, who had been treated badly enough before, were worsetreated now. And during his short administration, if it may be called anadministration,--during the time when he was nominally17 at the head ofaffairs--he was reducing the island to lower and lower depths. He didsucceed in obtaining a large product of gold, but the abuses of hisgovernment were not atoned18 for by such remittances19. Worst of all, thewrongs of the natives touched the sensitiveness of Isabella, and she waseager that his successor should be appointed, and should sail, to put an endto these calamities20.
The preparations which were made for Ovando's expedition, for therecall of Bobadilla, and for a reform, if it were possible, in theadministration of the colony, all set back any preparations for a newexpedition of discovery on the part of Columbus. He was not forgotten;his accounts were to be examined and any deficiencies made up to him; hewas to receive the arrears21 of his revenue; he was permitted to have anagent who should see that he received his share in future. To this agencyhe appointed Alonzo Sanchez de Carvajal, and the sovereigns gave ordersthat this agent should be treated with respect.
Other preparations were made, so that Ovando might arrive with astrong reinforcement for the colony. He sailed with thirty ships, the size ofthese vessels22 ranging from one hundred and fifty Spanish toneles to onebark of twenty-five. It will be remembered that the Spanish tonele is largerby about ten per cent than our English ton. Twenty-five hundred personsembarked as colonists23 in the vessels, and, for the first time, men took theirfamilies with them.
Everything was done to give dignity to the appointment of Ovando, and it was hoped that by sending out families of respectable character,who were to be distributed in four towns, there might be a better basisgiven to the settlement. This measure had been insisted upon byColumbus.
This fleet put to sea on the thirteenth of February, 1502. It met, at thevery outset, a terrible storm, and one hundred and twenty of the passengerswere lost by the foundering24 of a ship. The impression was at first given inSpain that the whole fleet had been lost; but this proved to be a mistake.
The others assembled at the Canaries, and arrived in San Domingo on thefifteenth of April.
Columbus himself never lost confidence in his own star. He was surethat he was divinely sent, and that his mission was to open the way to theIndies, for the religious advancement25 of mankind. If Vasco de Gama haddiscovered a shorter way than men knew before, Christopher Columbusshould discover one shorter still, and this discovery should tend to theglory of God. It seemed to him that the simplest way in which he couldmake men understand this, was to show that the Holy Sepulchre might,now and thus, be recovered from the infidel.
Far from urging geographical curiosity as an object, he proposed ratherthe recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. That is, there was to be a new and lastcrusade, and the money for this enterprise was to be furnished from thegold of the farthest East. He was close at the door of this farthest East; andas has been said, he believed that Cuba was the Ophir of Solomon, and hesupposed, that a very little farther voyaging would open all the treasureswhich Marco Polo had described, and would bring the territory, which hadmade the Great Khan so rich, into the possession of the king of Spain.
He showed to Ferdinand and Isabella that, if they would once more lethim go forward, on the adventure which had been checked untimely by thecruelty of Bobadilla, this time they would have wealth which would placethem at the head of the Christian26 sovereigns of the world.
While he was inactive at Seville, and the great squadron was beingprepared which Ovando was to command, he wrote what is known as the"Book of Prophecies," in which he attempted to convince the Catholickings of the necessity of carrying forward the enterprise which he proposed. He urged haste, because he believed the world was only to last ahundred and fifty-five years longer; and, with so much before them to bedone, it was necessary that they should begin.
He remembered an old vow28 that he had undertaken, that, within sevenyears of the time of his discovery, he would furnish fifty thousand footsoldiers and five thousand horsemen for the recovery of the HolySepulchre. He now arranged in order prophecies from the Holy Scripture,passages from the writings of the Fathers, and whatever else suggesteditself, mystical and hopeful, as to the success of an enterprise by which thenew world could be used for the conversion29 of the Gentiles and for theimprovement of the Christianity of the old world.
He had the assistance of a Carthusian monk30, who seems to have beenskilled in literary work, and the two arranged these passages in order,illustrated them with poetry, and collected them into a manuscript volumewhich was sent to the sovereigns.
Columbus accompanied the Book of Prophecies with one of his ownlong letters, written with the utmost fervor31. In this letter he begins, as Peterthe Hermit32 might do, by urging the sovereigns to set on foot a crusade. Ifthey are tempted27 to consider his advice extravagant33, he asks them how hisfirst scheme of discovery was treated. He shows that, as heaven hadchosen him to discover the new world, heaven has also chosen him todiscover the Holy Sepulchre. God himself had opened his eyes that hemight make the great discovery, which has reflected such honor upon themand theirs.
"If his hopes had been answered," says a Catholic writer, the modernquestion of holy places, which is the Gordian knot of the religious politicsof the future, would have been solved long ago by the gold of the newworld, or would have been cut by the sword of its discoverer. We shouldnot have seen nations which are separated from the Roman communion,both Protestant and Pantheistic governments, coming audaciously intocontest for privileges, which, by the rights of old possession, by the rightsof martyrdom and chivalry34, belong to the Holy Catholic Church, theApostolic Church, the Roman Church, and after her to France, her oldestdaughter."Columbus now supposed that the share of the western wealth whichwould belong to him would be sufficient for him to equip and arm ahundred thousand infantry35 and ten thousand horsemen.
At the moment when the Christian hero made this pious36 calculation hehad not enough of this revenue with which to buy a cloak," This is theremark of the enthusiastic biographer from whom we have already quoted.
It is not literally37 true, but it is true that Columbus was living in themost modest way at the time when he was pressing his ambitious schemesupon the court. At the same time, he wrote a poem with which heundertook to press the same great enterprise upon his readers. It was called"The End of Man," "Memorare novissima tua, et non peccabis ineternum."In his letter to the king and queen he says, "Animated38 as by a heavenlyfire, I came to your Highnesses; all who heard of my enterprise mocked it;all the sciences I had acquired profited me as nothing; seven years did Ipass in your royal court, disputing the case with persons of great authorityand learned in all the arts, and in the end they decided39 that all was vain. Inyour Highnesses alone remained faith and constancy. Who will doubt thatthis light was from the Holy Scriptures40, illumining you, as well as myself,with rays of marvellous brightness."It is probable that the king and queen were, to a certain extent,influenced by his enthusiasm. It is certain that they knew that somethingwas due to their reputation and to his success. By whatever motive41 led,they encouraged him with hopes that he might be sent forward again, thistime, not as commander of a colony, but as a discoverer. Discovery wasindeed the business which he understood, and to which alone he shouldever have been commissioned.
It is to be remembered that the language of crusaders was not then amatter of antiquity42, and was not used as if it alluded43 to bygone affairs. Itwas but a few years since the Saracens had been driven out of Spain, andall men regarded them as being the enemies of Christianity and of Europe,who could not be neglected. More than this, Spain was beginning toreceive very large and important revenues from the islands.
It is said that the annual revenues from Hispaniola already amounted to twelve millions of our dollars. It was not unnatural44 that the king andqueen, willing to throw off the disgrace which they had incurred45 fromBobadilla's cruelty, should not only send Ovando to replace him, butshould, though in an humble46 fashion, give to Columbus an opportunity toshow that his plans were not chimerical47.
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1
geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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2
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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4
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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retinue
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| n.侍从；随员 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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10
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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rumors
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| n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
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12
skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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13
unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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stork
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| n.鹳 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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atoned
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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remittances
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| n.汇寄( remittance的名词复数 )；汇款，汇款额 | |
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calamities
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| n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事 | |
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arrears
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| n.到期未付之债，拖欠的款项；待做的工作 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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colonists
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| n.殖民地开拓者，移民，殖民地居民( colonist的名词复数 ) | |
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24
foundering
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| v.创始人( founder的现在分词 ) | |
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advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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29
conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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30
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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31
fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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40
scriptures
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| 经文，圣典( scripture的名词复数 )； 经典 | |
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41
motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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42
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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43
alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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44
unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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45
incurred
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| [医]招致的，遭受的； incur的过去式 | |
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46
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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47
chimerical
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| adj.荒诞不经的，梦幻的 | |
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