Part 18 (2/2)

[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.

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