Part 15 (1/1)

The complaints of the ad He says, he desires to hear news each hour Couriers are arriving every day, but none for his so contrary to what his soul desires He alludes, I iine, 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 God

Could the poor Indians but have knohat a friend to theone 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 nospirits to see those places on earth they yearn ive ”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 froovernors and officers of all kinds had told her: how different froht 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 thes She had ordered that they should receive payment for their labour: she would have found that all they received was a h 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 properunder the tables of their masters, to catch the crumbs which fell there She would have beheld the Indian labouring at the lected, perishi+ng, or enslaved She would have ht months of dire toil, enter a place which knew hiaunt creature who had returned to thele their sorroith his; or, still ht froer at the mines, too hopeless, or too careless, to return

PEtitIONS OF COLUMBUS; INJUSTICE OF THE KING

Turning froht have been seen by Queen Isabella, had her departing gaze pierced to the outskirts of her doe eventful history of Colu survive his benefactress Ever since his return froe to the Indies, he had done little else than hts But Ferdinand, who had always looked coldly on his projects, was disposed to regard his clai to sacrifice the arrears of revenue due to hio should be made viceroy of the Indies, in accordance with the ternity 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 es of the Royal Conscience, which board regulated its proceedings by the knoishes of the king, and procrastinated too

The proverb, ”Fear old age, for it does not come alone,” was especially applicable to Colu sickness without the elasticity to bear it, poverty with high station and debt, and all the delay of suitorshi+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 prirow old and feeble with themselves; and those clouds, which were but white and scattered during the vigour of the day, sink down together, stor sun

DEATH OF COLUMBUS

Shortly after the arrival of Philip and his queen in Spain, Colu his inability to co his pitiless disease (the gout), he could yet do them service the like of which had not been seen Perhaps hethe administration of the Indies; perhaps, for he was of an indoes of discovery But there was then only left for hie in which the peasant who has seen but the little district round his hoht and deed, are alike to find themselves upon the unknoaters of further life Looked at in this hat a great discoverer each of us is to be!

But we , even at the deathbed of a hero Having received all the sacra as his last words, ”In manus 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 reo; and, in modern times, were taken to the cathedral at Havana, where they now rest

THE END