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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Christopher Columbus by Filson Young, v8
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+Title: Christopher Columbus by Filson Young, v8
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+Author: Filson Young
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Christopher Columbus by Filson Young, v8
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+
+
+                         CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
+                   AND THE NEW WORLD OF HIS DISCOVERY
+
+                      A NARRATIVE BY FILSON YOUNG
+
+
+
+BOOK 8.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+RELIEF OF THE ADMIRAL
+
+There was no further difficulty about provisions, which were punctually
+brought by the natives on the old terms; but the familiar, spirit of
+sedition began to work again among the unhappy Spaniards, and once more a
+mutiny, led this time by the apothecary Bernardo, took form--the
+intention being to seize the remaining canoes and attempt to reach
+Espanola.  This was the point at which matters had arrived, in March
+1504, when as the twilight was falling one evening a cry was raised that
+there was a ship in sight; and presently a small caravel was seen
+standing in towards the shore.  All ideas of mutiny were forgotten, and
+the crew assembled in joyful anticipation to await, as they thought, the
+coming of their deliverers.  The caravel came on with the evening breeze;
+but while it was yet a long way off the shore it was seen to be lying to;
+a boat was lowered and rowed towards the harbour.
+
+As the boat drew near Columbus could recognise in it Diego de Escobar,
+whom he remembered having condemned to death for his share in the
+rebellion of Roldan.  He was not the man whom Columbus would have most
+wished to see at that moment.  The boat came alongside the hulks, and a
+barrel of wine and a side of bacon, the sea-compliment customary on such
+occasions, was handed up.  Greatly to the Admiral's surprise, however,
+Escobar did not come on board, but pushed his boat off and began to speak
+to Columbus from a little distance.  He told him that Ovando was greatly
+distressed at the Admiral's misfortunes; that he had been much occupied
+by wars in Espanola, and had not been able to send a message to him
+before; that he greatly regretted he had no ship at present large enough
+to bring off the Admiral and his people, but that he would send one as
+soon as he had it.  In the meantime the Admiral was to be assured that
+all his affairs in Espanola were being attended to faithfully, and that
+Escobar was instructed to bring back at once any letters which the
+Admiral might wish to write.
+
+The coolness and unexpectedness of this message completely took away the
+breath of the unhappy Spaniards, who doubtless stood looking in
+bewilderment from Escobar to Columbus, unable to believe that the caravel
+had not been sent for their relief.  Columbus, however, with a self-
+restraint which cannot be too highly praised, realised that Escobar meant
+what he said, and that by protesting against his action or trying to
+interfere with it he would only be putting himself in the wrong.  He
+therefore retired immediately to his cabin and wrote a letter to Ovando,
+in which he drew a vivid picture of the distress of his people, reported
+the rebellion of the Porras brothers, and reminded Ovando that he relied
+upon the fulfilment of his promise to send relief.  The letter was handed
+over to Escobar, who rowed back with it to his caravel and immediately
+sailed away with it into the night.
+
+
+Before he could retire to commune with his own thoughts or to talk with
+his faithful brother, Columbus had the painful duty of speaking to his
+people, whose puzzled and disappointed faces must have cost him some
+extra pangs.  He told them that he was quite satisfied with the message
+from Ovando, that it was a sign of kindness on his part thus to send them
+news in advance that relief was coming, that their situation was now
+known in San Domingo, and that vessels would soon be here to take them
+away.  He added that he himself was so sure of these things that he had
+refused to go back with Escobar, but had preferred to remain with them
+and share their lot until relief should come.  This had the desired
+effect of cheering the Spaniards; but it was far from representing the
+real sentiments of Columbus on the subject.  The fact that Escobar had
+been chosen to convey this strange empty message of sympathy seemed to
+him suspicious, and with his profound distrust of Ovando Columbus began
+to wonder whether some further scheme might not be on foot to damage him
+in the eyes of the Sovereigns.  He was convinced that Ovando had meant to
+let him starve on the island, and that the real purpose of Escobar's
+visit had been to find out what condition the Admiral was in, so that
+Ovando might know how to act.  It is very hard to get at the truth of
+what these two men thought of each other.  They were both suspicious,
+each was playing for his own hand, and Ovando was only a little more
+unscrupulous than Columbus; but there can be no doubt that whatever his
+motives may have been Ovando acted with abominable treachery and cruelty
+in leaving the Admiral unrelieved for nearly nine months.
+
+
+Columbus now tried to make use of the visit of Escobar to restore to
+allegiance the band of rebels that were wandering about in the
+neighbourhood under the leadership of the Porras brothers.  Why he should
+have wished to bring them back to the ships is not clear, for by all
+accounts he was very well rid of them; but probably his pride as a
+commander was hurt by the thought that half of his company had defied his
+authority and were in a state of mutiny.  At any rate he sent out an
+ambassador to Porras, offering to receive the mutineers back without any
+punishment, and to give them a free passage to Espanola in the vessels
+which were shortly expected, if they would return to their allegiance
+with him.
+
+The folly of this overture was made manifest by the treatment which it
+received.  It was bad enough to make advances to the Porras brothers, but
+it was still worse to have those advances repulsed, and that is what
+happened.  The Porras brothers, being themselves incapable of any single-
+mindedness, affected not to believe in the sincerity of the Admiral's
+offer; they feared that he was laying some kind of trap for them;
+moreover, they were doing very well in their lawless way, and living very
+comfortably on the natives; so they told Columbus's ambassadors that his
+offer was declined.  At the same time they undertook to conduct
+themselves in an amicable and orderly manner on condition that, when the
+vessels arrived, one of them should be apportioned to the exclusive use
+of the mutineers; and that in the meantime the Admiral should share with
+them his store of provisions and trinkets, as theirs were exhausted.
+
+This was the impertinent decision of the Porras brothers; but it did not
+quite commend itself to their followers, who were fearful of the possible
+results if they should persist in their mutinous conduct.  They were very
+much afraid of being left behind in the island, and in any case, having
+attempted and failed in the main object of their mutiny, they saw no
+reason why they should refuse a free pardon.  But the Porras brothers
+lied busily.  They said that the Admiral was merely laying a trap in
+order to get them into his power, and that he would send them home to
+Spain in chains; and they even went so far as to assure their fellow-
+rebels that the story of a caravel having arrived was not really true;
+but that Columbus, who was an adept in the arts of necromancy, had really
+made his people believe that they had seen a caravel in the dusk; and
+that if one had really arrived it would not have gone away so suddenly,
+nor would the Admiral and his brother and son have failed to take their
+passage in it.
+
+To consolidate the effect of these remarkable statements on the still
+wavering mutineers, the Porras brothers decided to commit them to an open
+act of violence which would successfully alienate them from the Admiral.
+They formed them, therefore, into an armed expedition, with the idea of
+seizing the stores remaining on the wreck and taking the Admiral
+personally.  Columbus fortunately got news of this, as he nearly always
+did when there was treachery in the wind; and he sent Bartholomew to try
+to persuade them once more to return to their duty--a vain and foolish
+mission, the vanity and folly of which were fully apparent to
+Bartholomew.  He duly set out upon it; but instead of mild words he took
+with him fifty armed men--the whole available able-bodied force, in fact-
+and drew near to the position occupied by the rebels.
+
+
+The exhortation of the Porras brothers had meanwhile produced its effect,
+and it was decided that six of the strongest men among the mutineers
+should make for Bartholomew himself and try to capture or kill him.  The
+fierce Adelantado, finding himself surrounded by six assailants, who
+seemed to be directing their whole effort against his life, swung his
+sword in a berserk rage and slashed about him, to such good purpose that
+four or five of his assailants soon lay round him killed or wounded.  At
+this point Francisco de Porras rushed in and cleft the shield held by
+Bartholomew, severely wounding the hand that held it; but the sword.
+stuck in the shield, and while Porras was endeavouring to draw it out
+Bartholomew and some others closed upon him, and after a sharp struggle
+took him prisoner.  The battle, which was a short one, had been meanwhile
+raging fiercely among the rest of the forces; but when the mutineers saw
+their leader taken prisoner, and many of their number lying dead or
+wounded, they scattered and fled, but not before Bartholomew's force had
+taken several prisoners.  It was then found that, although the rebels had
+suffered heavily, none of Bartholomew's men were killed, and only one
+other besides himself was wounded.  The next day the mutineers all came
+in to surrender, submitting an abject oath of allegiance; and Columbus,
+always strangely magnanimous to rebels and insurgents, pardoned them all
+with the exception of Francisco de Porras, who, one is glad to know, was
+confined in irons to be sent to Spain for trial.
+
+
+This submission, which was due to the prompt action of Bartholomew rather
+than to the somewhat feeble diplomacy of the Admiral, took place on March
+20th, and proved somewhat embarrassing to Columbus.  He could put no
+faith in the oaths and protestations of the mutineers; and he was very
+doubtful about the wisdom of establishing them once more on the wrecks
+with the hitherto orderly remnant.  He therefore divided them up into
+several bands, and placing each under the command of an officer whom he
+could trust, he supplied them with trinkets and despatched them to
+different parts of the island, for the purpose of collecting provisions
+and carrying on barter with the natives.  By this means the last month or
+two of this most trying and exciting sojourn on the island of Jamaica
+were passed in some measure of peace; and towards the end of June it was
+brought to an end by the arrival of two caravels.  One of them was the
+ship purchased by Diego Mendez out of the three which had arrived from
+Spain; and the other had been despatched by Ovando in deference, it is
+said, to public feeling in San Domingo, which had been so influenced by
+Mendez's account of the Admiral's heroic adventures that Ovando dared not
+neglect him any longer.  Moreover, if it had ever been his hope that the
+Admiral would perish on the island of Jamaica, that hope was now doomed
+to frustration, and, as he was to be rescued in spite of all, Ovando no
+doubt thought that he might as well, for the sake of appearances, have a
+hand in the rescue.
+
+The two caravels, laden with what was worth saving from the two abandoned
+hulks, and carrying what was left of the Admiral's company, sailed from
+Jamaica on June 28, 1504.  Columbus's joy, as we may imagine, was deep
+and heartfelt.  He said afterwards to Mendez that it was the happiest day
+of his life, for that he had never hoped to leave the place alive.
+
+The mission of Mendez, then, had been successful, although he had had to
+wait for eight months to fulfil it.  He himself, in accordance with
+Columbus's instructions, had gone to Spain in another caravel of the
+fleet out of which he had purchased the relieving ship; and as he passes
+out of our narrative we may now take our farewell of him.  Among the many
+men employed in the Admiral's service no figure stands out so brightly as
+that of Diego Mendez; and his record, almost alone of those whose service
+of the Admiral earned them office and distinction, is unblotted by any
+stain of crime or treachery.  He was as brave as a lion and as faithful
+as a dog, and throughout his life remained true to his ideal of service
+to the Admiral and his descendants.  He was rewarded by King Ferdinand
+for his distinguished services, and allowed to bear a canoe on his coat-
+of-arms; he was with the Admiral at his death-bed at Valladolid, and when
+he himself came to die thirty years afterwards in the same place he made
+a will in which he incorporated a brief record of the events of the
+adventurous voyage in which he had borne the principal part, and also
+enshrined his devotion to the name and family of Columbus.  His demands
+for himself were very modest, although there is reason to fear that they
+were never properly fulfilled.  He was curiously anxious to be remembered
+chiefly by his plucky canoe voyage; and in giving directions for his
+tomb, and ordering that a stone should be placed over his remains, he
+wrote: "In the centre of the said stone let a canoe be carved, which is a
+piece of wood hollowed out in which the Indians navigate, because in such
+a boat I navigated three hundred leagues, and let some letters be placed
+above it saying: Canoa."  The epitaph that he chose for himself was in
+the following sense:
+
+                   Here lies the Honourable Gentleman
+
+                              DIEGO MENDEZ
+
+             He greatly served the royal crown of Spain in
+             the discovery and conquest of the Indies with
+                the Admiral Don Christopher Columbus of
+               glorious memory who discovered them, and
+              afterwards by himself, with his own ships,
+                         at his own expense.
+                            He died, etc.
+                  He begs from charity a PATERNOSTER
+                           and an AVE MARIA.
+
+
+Surely he deserves them, if ever an honourable gentleman did.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HERITAGE OF HATRED
+
+Although the journey from Jamaica to Espanola had been accomplished in
+four days by Mendez in his canoe, the caravels conveying the party
+rescued from Puerto Santa Gloria were seven weary weeks on this short
+voyage; a strong north-west wind combining with the west-going current to
+make their progress to the north-west impossible for weeks at a time.  It
+was not until the 13th of August 1503 that they anchored in the harbour
+of San Domingo, and Columbus once more set foot, after an absence of more
+than two years, on the territory from the governorship of which he had
+been deposed.
+
+He was well enough received by Ovando, who came down in state to meet
+him, lodged him in his own house, and saw that he was treated with the
+distinction suitable to his high station.  The Spanish colony, moreover,
+seemed to have made something of a hero of Columbus during his long
+absence, and they received him with enthusiasm.  But his satisfaction in
+being in San Domingo ended with that.  He was constantly made to feel
+that it was Ovando and not he who was the ruler there;--and Ovando
+emphasised the difference between them by numerous acts of highhanded
+authority, some of them of a kind calculated to be extremely mortifying
+to the Admiral.  Among these things he insisted upon releasing Porras,
+whom Columbus had confined in chains; and he talked of punishing those
+faithful followers of Columbus who had taken part in the battle between
+Bartholomew and the rebels, because in this fight some of the followers
+of Porras had been killed.  Acts like these produced weary bickerings and
+arguments between Ovando and Columbus, unprofitable to them, unprofitable
+to us.  The Admiral seems now to have relapsed into a condition in which
+he cared only for two things, his honours and his emoluments.  Over every
+authoritative act of Ovando's there was a weary squabble between him and
+the Admiral, Ovando claiming his right of jurisdiction over the whole
+territory of the New World, including Jamaica, and Columbus insisting
+that by his commission and letters of authority he had been placed in
+sole charge of the members of his own expedition.
+
+And then, as regards his emoluments, the Admiral considered himself (and
+not without justice) to have been treated most unfairly.  By the
+extravagant terms of his original agreement he was, as we know, entitled
+to a share of all rents and dues, as well as of the gold collected; but
+it had been no one's business to collect these for him, and every one's
+business to neglect them.  No one had cared; no one had kept any accounts
+of what was due to the Admiral; he could not find out what had been paid
+and what had not been paid.  He accused Ovando of having impeded his
+agent Carvajal in his duty of collecting the Admiral's revenues, and of
+disobeying the express orders of Queen Isabella in that matter; and so
+on-a state of affairs the most wearisome, sordid, and unprofitable in
+which any man could be involved.
+
+And if Columbus turned his eyes from the office in San Domingo inland to
+that Paradise which he had entered twelve years before, what change and
+ruin, dreary, horrible and complete, did he not discover!  The birds
+still sang, and the nights were still like May in Cordova; but upon that
+happy harmony the sound of piteous cries and shrieks had long since
+broken, and along and black December night of misery had spread its pall
+over the island.  Wherever he went, Columbus found the same evidence of
+ruin and desolation.  Where once innumerable handsome natives had
+thronged the forests and the villages, there were now silence and smoking
+ruin, and the few natives that he met were emaciated, terrified, dying.
+Did he reflect, I wonder, that some part of the responsibility of all
+this horror rested on him?  That many a system of island government, the
+machinery of which was now fed by a steady stream of human lives, had
+been set going by him in ignorance, or greed of quick commercial returns?
+It is probable that he did not; for he now permanently regarded himself
+as a much-injured man, and was far too much occupied with his own wrongs
+to realise that they were as nothing compared with the monstrous stream
+of wrong and suffering that he had unwittingly sent flowing into the
+world.
+
+In the island under Ovando's rule Columbus saw the logical results of his
+own original principles of government, which had recognised the right of
+the Christians to possess the persons and labours of the heathen natives.
+Las Casas, who was living in Espanola as a young priest at this time, and
+was destined by long residence there and in the West Indies to qualify
+himself as their first historian, saw what Columbus saw, and saw also the
+even worse things that happened in after years in Cuba and Jamaica; and
+it is to him that we owe our knowledge of the condition of island affairs
+at this time.  The colonists whom Ovando had brought out had come very
+much in the spirit that in our own day characterised the rush to the
+north-western goldfields of America.  They brought only the slightest
+equipment, and were no sooner landed at San Domingo than they set out
+into the island like so many picnic parties, being more careful to carry
+vessels in which to bring back the gold they were to find than proper
+provisions and equipment to support them in the labour of finding it.
+The roads, says Las Casas, swarmed like ant-hills with these adventurers
+rushing forth to the mines, which were about twenty-five miles distant
+from San Domingo; they were in the highest spirits, and they made it a
+kind of race as to who should get there first.  They thought they had
+nothing to do but to pick up shining lumps of gold; and when they found
+that they had to dig and delve in the hard earth, and to dig
+systematically and continuously, with a great deal of digging for very
+little gold, their spirits fell.  They were not used to dig; and it
+happened that most of them began in an unprofitable spot, where they
+digged for eight days without finding any gold.  Their provisions were
+soon exhausted; and in a week they were back again in San Domingo, tired,
+famished, and bitterly disappointed.  They had no genius for steady
+labour; most of them were virtually without means; and although they
+lived in San Domingo, on what they had as long as possible, they were
+soon starving there, and selling the clothes off their backs to procure
+food.  Some of them took situations with the other settlers, more fell
+victims to the climate of the island and their own imprudences and
+distresses; and a thousand of them had died within two years.
+
+Ovando had revived the enthusiasm for mining by two enactments.  He
+reduced the share of discovered gold payable to the Crown, and he
+developed Columbus's system of forced labour to such an extent that the
+mines were entirely worked by it.  To each Spaniard, whether mining or
+farming, so many natives were allotted.  It was not called slavery; the
+natives were supposed to be paid a minute sum, and their employers were
+also expected to teach them the Christian religion.  That was the plan.
+The way in which it worked was that, a body of native men being allotted
+to a Spanish settler for a period, say, of six or eight months--for the
+enactment was precise in putting a period to the term of slavery--the
+natives would be marched off, probably many days' journey from their
+homes and families, and set to work under a Spanish foreman.  The work,
+as we have already seen, was infinitely harder than that to which they
+were accustomed; and most serious of all, it was done under conditions
+that took all the heart out of the labour.  A man will toil in his own
+garden or in tilling his own land with interest and happiness, not
+counting the hours which he spends there; knowing in fact that his work
+is worth doing, because he is doing it for a good reason.  But put the
+same man to work in a gang merely for the aggrandisement of some other
+over-man; and the heart and cheerfulness will soon die out of him.
+
+It was so with these children of the sun.  They were put to work ten
+times harder than any they had ever done before, and they were put to it
+under the lash.  The light diet of their habit had been sufficient to
+support them in their former existence of happy idleness and dalliance,
+and they had not wanted anything more than their cassava bread and a
+little fish and fruit; now, however, they were put to work at a pressure
+which made a very different kind of feeding necessary to them, and this
+they did not get.  Now and then a handful of pork would be divided among
+a dozen of them, but they were literally starved, and were accustomed to
+scramble like dogs for the bones that were thrown from the tables of the
+Spaniards, which bones they ground up and mixed with their, bread so that
+no portion of them might be lost.  They died in numbers under these hard
+conditions, and, compared with their lives, their deaths must often have
+been happy.  When the time came for them to go home they were generally
+utterly worn out and crippled, and had to face a long journey of many
+days with no food to support them but what they could get on the journey;
+and the roads were strewn with the dead bodies of those who fell by the
+way.
+
+And far worse things happened to them than labour and exhaustion.  It
+became the custom among the Spaniards to regard the lives of the natives
+as of far less value than those of the dogs that were sometimes set upon
+them in sport.  A Spaniard riding along would make a wager with his
+fellow that he would cut the head off a native with one stroke of his
+sword; and many attempts would be laughingly made, and many living bodies
+hideously mutilated and destroyed, before the feat would be accomplished.
+Another sport was one similar to pigsticking as it is practised in India,
+except that instead of pigs native women and children were stuck with the
+lances.  There was no kind of mutilation and monstrous cruelty that was
+not practised.  If there be any powers of hell, they stalked at large
+through the forests and valleys of Espanola.  Lust and bloody cruelty, of
+a kind not merely indescribable but unrealisable by sane men and women,
+drenched the once happy island with anguish and terror.  And in payment
+for it the Spaniards undertook to teach the heathen the Christian
+religion.
+
+
+The five chiefs who had ruled with justice and wisdom over the island of
+Espanola in the early days of Columbus were all dead, wiped out by the
+wave of wild death and cruelty that had swept over the island.  The
+gentle Guacanagari, when he saw the desolation that was beginning to
+overwhelm human existence, had fled into the mountains, hiding his face
+in shame from the sons of men, and had miserably died there.  Caonabo,
+Lord of the House of Gold, fiercest and bravest of them all, who first
+realised that the Spaniards were enemies to the native peace, after
+languishing in prison in the house of Columbus at Isabella for some time,
+had died in captivity during the voyage to Spain.  Anacaona his wife, the
+Bloom of the Gold, that brave and beautiful woman, whose admiration of
+the Spaniards had by their bloody cruelties been turned into detestation,
+had been shamefully betrayed and ignominiously hanged.  Behechio, her
+brother, the only cacique who did not sue for peace after the first
+conquest of the island by Christopher and Bartholomew Columbus, was dead
+long ago of wounds and sorrow.  Guarionex, the Lord of the Vega Real, who
+had once been friendly enough, who had danced to the Spanish pipe and
+learned the Paternoster and Ave Maria, and whose progress in conversion
+to Christianity the seduction of his wives by those who were converting
+him had interrupted, after wandering in the mountains of Ciguay had been
+imprisoned in chains, and drowned in the hurricane of June 30, 1502.
+
+The fifth chief, Cotabanama, Lord of the province of Higua, made the last
+stand against Ovando in defence of the native right to existence, and was
+only defeated after severe battles and dreadful slaughters.  His
+territory was among the mountains, and his last insurrection was caused,
+as so many others had been, by the intolerable conduct of the Spaniards
+towards the wives and daughters of the Indians.  Collecting all his
+warriors, Cotabanama attacked the Spanish posts in his neighbourhood.
+At every engagement his troops were defeated and dispersed, but only to
+collect again, fight again with even greater fury, be defeated and
+dispersed again, and rally again against the Spaniards.  They literally
+fought to the death.  After every battle the Spaniards made a massacre of
+all the natives they could find, old men, children, and pregnant women
+being alike put to the sword or burned in their houses.  When their
+companions fell beside them, instead of being frightened they became more
+furious; and when they were wounded they would pluck the arrows out of
+their bodies and hurl them back at the Spaniards, falling dead in the
+very act.  After one such severe defeat and massacre the natives
+scattered for many months, hiding among the mountains and trying to
+collect and succour their decimated families; but the Spaniards, who with
+their dogs grew skilful at tracking the Indians and found it pleasant
+sport, came upon them in the places of refuge where little groups of them
+were sheltering their women and children, and there slowly and cruelly
+slaughtered them, often with the addition of tortures and torments in
+order to induce them to reveal the whereabouts of other bands.  When it
+was possible the Spaniards sometimes hanged thirteen of them in a row in
+commemoration of their Blessed Saviour and the Twelve Apostles; and while
+they were hanging, and before they had quite died, they would hack at
+them with their swords in order to test the edge of the steel.  At the
+last stand, when the fierceness and bitterness of the contest rose to a
+height on both sides, Cotabanama was captured and a plan made to broil
+him slowly to death; but for some reason this plan was not carried out,
+and the brave chief was taken to San Domingo and publicly hanged like a
+thief.
+
+
+After that there was never any more resistance; it was simply a case of
+extermination, which the Spaniards easily accomplished by cutting of the
+heads of women as they passed by, and impaling infants and little
+children on their lances as they rode through the villages.  Thus, in the
+twelve years since the discovery of Columbus, between half a million and
+a million natives, perished; and as the Spanish colonisation spread
+afterwards from island to island, and the banner of civilisation and
+Christianity was borne farther abroad throughout the Indies, the same
+hideous process was continued.  In Cuba, in Jamaica, throughout the
+Antilles, the cross and the sword, the whip-lash and the Gospel advanced
+together; wherever the Host was consecrated, hideous cries of agony and
+suffering broke forth; until happily, in the fulness of time, the dire
+business was complete, and the whole of the people who had inhabited this
+garden of the world were exterminated and their blood and race wiped from
+the face of the earth .  .  .  .  Unless, indeed, blood and race and hatred
+be imperishable things; unless the faithful Earth that bred and reared
+the race still keeps in her soil, and in the waving branches of the trees
+and the green grasses, the sacred essences of its blood and hatred;
+unless in the full cycle of Time, when that suffering flesh and blood
+shall have gone through all the changes of substance and condition, from
+corruption and dust through flowers and grasses and trees and animals
+back into the living body of mankind again, it shall one day rise up
+terribly to avenge that horror of the past.  Unless Earth and Time
+remember, O Children of the Sun!  for men have forgotten, and on the soil
+of your Paradise the African negro, learned in the vices of Europe,
+erects his monstrous effigy of civilisation and his grotesque mockery of
+freedom; unless it be through his brutish body, into which the blood and
+hatred with which the soil of Espanola was soaked have now passed, that
+they shall dreadfully strike at the world again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE ADMIRAL COMES HOME
+
+On September 12, 1504., Christopher Columbus did many things for the last
+time.  He who had so often occupied himself in ports and harbours with
+the fitting out of ships and preparations for a voyage now completed at
+San Domingo the simple preparations for the last voyage he was to take.
+The ship he had come in from Jamaica had been refitted and placed under
+the command of Bartholomew, and he had bought another small caravel in
+which he and his son were to sail.  For the last time he superintended
+those details of fitting out and provisioning which were now so familiar
+to him; for the last time he walked in the streets of San Domingo and
+mingled with the direful activities of his colony; he looked his last
+upon the place where the vital scenes of his life had been set, for the
+last time weighed anchor, and took his last farewell of the seas and
+islands of his discovery.  A little steadfast looking, a little straining
+of the eyes, a little heart-aching no doubt, and Espanola has sunk down
+into the sea behind the white wake of the ships; and with its fading away
+the span of active life allotted to this man shuts down, and his powerful
+opportunities for good or evil are withdrawn.
+
+There was something great and heroic about the Admiral's last voyage.
+Wind and sea rose up as though to make a last bitter attack upon the man
+who had disclosed their mysteries and betrayed their secrets.  He had
+hardly cleared the island before the first gale came down upon him and
+dismasted his ship, so that he was obliged to transfer himself and his
+son to Bartholomew's caravel and send the disabled vessel back to
+Espanola.  The shouting sea, as though encouraged by this triumph, hurled
+tempest after tempest upon the one lonely small ship that was staggering
+on its way to Spain; and the duel between this great seaman and the vast
+elemental power that he had so often outwitted began in earnest.  One
+little ship, one enfeebled man to be destroyed by the power of the sea:
+that was the problem, and there were thousands of miles of sea-room, and
+two months of time to solve it in!  Tempest after tempest rose and drove
+unceasingly against the ship.  A mast was sprung and had to be cut away;
+another, and the woodwork from the forecastles and high stern works had
+to be stripped and lashed round the crazy mainmast to preserve it from
+wholesale destruction.  Another gale, and the mast had to be shortened,
+for even reinforced as it was it would not bear the strain; and so
+crippled, so buffeted, this very small ship leapt and staggered on her
+way across the Atlantic, keeping her bowsprit pointed to that region of
+the foamy emptiness where Spain was.
+
+The Admiral lay crippled in his cabin listening to the rush and bubble of
+the water, feeling the blows and recoils of the unending battle,
+hearkening anxiously to the straining of the timbers and the vessel's
+agonised complainings under the pounding of the seas.  We do not know
+what his thoughts were; but we may guess that they looked backward rather
+than forward, and that often they must have been prayers that the present
+misery would come somehow or other to an end.  Up on deck brother
+Bartholomew, who has developed some grievous complaint of the jaws and
+teeth--complaint not known to us more particularly, but dreadful enough
+from that description--does his duty also, with that heroic manfulness
+that has marked his whole career; and somewhere in the ship young
+Ferdinand is sheltering from the sprays and breaking seas, finding his
+world of adventure grown somewhat gloomy and sordid of late, and feeling
+that he has now had his fill of the sea .  .  .  .  Shut your eyes and
+let the illusions of time and place fade from you; be with them for a
+moment on this last voyage; hear that eternal foaming and crashing of
+great waves, the shrieking of wind in cordage, the cracking and slatting
+of the sails, the mad lashing of loose ropes; the painful swinging, and
+climbing up and diving down, and sinking and staggering and helpless
+strivings of the small ship in the waste of water.  The sea is as empty
+as chaos, nothing for days and weeks but that infinite tumbling surface
+and heaven of grey storm-clouds; a world of salt surges encircled by
+horizons of dim foam.  Time and place are nothing; the agony and pain of
+such moments are eternal.
+
+But the two brothers, grim and gigantic in their sea power, subtle as the
+wind itself in their sea wit, win the battle.  Over the thousands of
+miles of angry surges they urge that small ship towards calm and safety;
+until one day the sea begins to abate a little, and through the spray and
+tumult of waters the dim loom of land is seen.  The sea falls back
+disappointed and finally conquered by Christopher Columbus, whose ship,
+battered, crippled, and strained, comes back out of the wilderness of
+waters and glides quietly into the smooth harbour of San Lucar, November
+7, 1504.  There were no guns or bells to greet the Admiral; his only
+salute was in the thunder of the conquered seas; and he was carried
+ashore to San Lucar, and thence to Seville, a sick and broken man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE LAST DAYS
+
+Columbus, for whom rest and quiet were the first essentials, remained in
+Seville from November 1504 to May 1505, when he joined the Court at
+Segovia and afterwards at Salamanca and Valladolid, where he remained
+till his death in May 1506.  During this last period, when all other
+activities were practically impossible to him, he fell into a state of
+letter-writing--for the most part long, wearisome complainings and
+explainings in which he poured out a copious flood of tears and self-pity
+for the loss of his gold.
+
+It has generally been claimed that Columbus was in bitter penury and want
+of money, but a close examination of the letters and other documents
+relating to this time show that in his last days he was not poor in any
+true sense of the word.  He was probably a hundred times richer than any
+of his ancestors had ever been; he had, money to give and money to spend;
+the banks honoured his drafts; his credit was apparently indisputable.
+But compared with the fabulous wealth to which he would by this time have
+been entitled if his original agreement with the Crown of Spain had been
+faithfully carried out he was no doubt poor.  There is no evidence that
+he lacked any comfort or alleviation that money could buy; indeed he
+never had any great craving for the things that money can buy--only for
+money itself.  There must have been many rich people in Spain who would
+gladly have entertained him in luxury and dignity; but he was not the
+kind of man to set much store by such things except in so far as they
+were a decoration and advertisement of his position as a great man.  He
+had set himself to the single task of securing what he called his rights;
+and in these days of sunset he seems to have been illumined by some
+glimmer of the early glory of his first inspiration.  He wanted the
+payment of his dues now, not so much for his own enrichment, but as a
+sign to the world that his great position as Admiral and Viceroy was
+recognised, so that his dignities and estates might be established and
+consolidated in a form which he would be able to transmit to his remote
+posterity.
+
+Since he wrote so copiously and so constantly in these last days, the
+best picture of his mood and condition is afforded in his letters to his
+son Diego; letters which, in spite of their infinitely wearisome
+recapitulation and querulous complaint, should be carefully read by those
+who wish to keep in touch with the Admiral to the end.
+
+     Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,
+     November 21, 1504.
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON,--I received your letter by the courier.  You did
+     well in remaining yonder to remedy our affairs somewhat and to
+     employ yourself now in our business.  Ever since I came to Castile,
+     the Lord Bishop of Palencia has shown me favour and has desired that
+     I should be honoured.  Now he must be entreated that it may please
+     him to occupy himself in remedying my many grievances and in
+     ordering that the agreement and letters of concession which their
+     Highnesses gave me be fulfilled, and that I be indemnified for so
+     many damages.  And he may be certain that if their Highnesses do
+     this, their estate and greatness will be multiplied to them in an
+     incredible degree.  And it must not appear to him that forty
+     thousand pesos in gold is more than a representation of it; because
+     they might have had a much greater quantity if Satan had not
+     hindered it by impeding my design; for, when I was taken away from
+     the Indies, I was prepared to give them a sum of gold incomparable
+     to forty thousand pesos.  I make oath, and this may be for thee
+     alone, that the damage to me in the matter of the concessions their
+     Highnesses have made to me, amounts to ten millions each year, and
+     never can be made good.  You see what will be, or is, the injury to
+     their Highnesses in what belongs to them, and they do not perceive
+     it.  I write at their disposal and will strive to start yonder.  My
+     arrival and the rest is in the hands of our Lord.  His mercy is
+     infinite.  What is done and is to be done, St. Augustine says is
+     already done before the creation of the world.  I write also to
+     these other Lords named in the letter of Diego Mendez.  Commend me
+     to their mercy and tell them of my going as I have said above.  For
+     certainly I feel great fear, as the cold is so inimical to this, my
+     infirmity, that I may have to remain on the road.
+
+     "I was very much pleased to hear the contents of your letter and
+     what the King our Lord said, for which you kissed his royal hands.
+     It is certain that I have served their Highnesses with as much
+     diligence and love as though it had been to gain Paradise, and more,
+     and if I have been at fault in anything it has been because it was
+     impossible or because my knowledge and strength were not sufficient.
+     God, our Lord, in such a case, does not require more from persons
+     than the will.
+
+     "At the request of the Treasurer Morales, I left two brothers in the
+     Indies, who are called Porras.  The one was captain and the other
+     auditor.  Both were without capacity for these positions: and I was
+     confident that they could fill them, because of love for the person
+     who sent them to me.  They both became more vain than they had been.
+     I forgave them many incivilities, more than I would do with a
+     relation, and their offences were such that they merited another
+     punishment than a verbal reprimand.  Finally they reached such a
+     point that even had I desired, I could not have avoided doing what I
+     did.  The records of the case will prove whether I lie or not.  They
+     rebelled on the island of Jamaica, at which I was as much astonished
+     as I would be if the sun's rays should cast darkness.  I was at the
+     point of death, and they martyrised me with extreme cruelty during
+     five months and without cause.  Finally I took them all prisoners,
+     and immediately set them free, except the captain, whom I was
+     bringing as a prisoner to their Highnesses.  A petition which they
+     made to me under oath, and which I send you with this letter, will
+     inform you at length in regard to this matter, although the records
+     of the case explain it fully.  These records and the Notary are
+     coming on another vessel, which I am expecting from day to day.  The
+     Governor in Santo Domingo took this prisoner.--His courtesy
+     constrained him to do this.  I had a chapter in my instructions in
+     which their Highnesses ordered all to obey me, and that I should
+     exercise civil and criminal justice over all those who were with me:
+     but this was of no avail with the Governor, who said that it was not
+     understood as applying in his territory.  He sent the prisoner to
+     these Lords who have charge of the Indies without inquiry or record
+     or writing.  They did not receive him, and both brothers go free.
+     It is not wonderful to me that our Lord punishes.  They went there
+     with shameless faces.  Such wickedness or such cruel treason were
+     never heard of.  I wrote to their Highnesses about this matter in
+     the other letter, and said that it was not right for them to consent
+     to this offence.  I also wrote to the Lord Treasurer that I begged
+     him as a favour not to pass sentence on the testimony given by these
+     men until he heard me.  Now it will be well for you to remind him of
+     it anew.  I do, not know how they dare to go before him with such an
+     undertaking.  I have written to him about it again and have sent him
+     the copy of the oath, the same as I send to you and likewise to
+     Doctor Angulo and the Licentiate Zapata.  I commend myself to the
+     mercy of all, with the information that my departure yonder will
+     take place in a short time.
+
+     "I would be glad to receive a letter from their Highnesses and to
+     know what they order.  You must procure such a letter if you see the
+     means of so doing.  I also commend myself to the Lord Bishop and to
+     Juan Lopez, with the reminder of illness and of the reward for my
+     services.
+
+     "You must read the letters which go with this one in order to act in
+     conformity with what they say.  Acknowledge the receipt of his
+     letter to Diego Mendez.  I do not write him as he will learn
+     everything from you, and also because my illness prevents it.
+
+     "It would be well for Carbajal and Jeronimo --[Jeronimo de Aguero, a
+     landowner in Espanola and a friend of Columbus]-- to be at the-Court
+     at this time, and talk of our affairs with these Lords and with the
+     Secretary.
+
+     "Done in Seville, November 21.
+
+     "Your father who loves you more than himself.
+
+                                                    .S.
+                                                  .S.A.S.
+                                                    XMY
+                                                 Xpo FERENS."
+
+     "I wrote again to their Highnesses entreating them to order that
+     these people who went with me should be paid, because they are poor
+     and it is three years since they left their homes.  The news which
+     they bring is more than extraordinary.  They have endured infinite
+     dangers and hardships.  I did not wish to rob the country, so as not
+     to cause scandal, because reason advises its being populated, and
+     then gold will be obtained freely without scandal.  Speak of this to
+     the Secretary and to the Lord Bishop and to Juan Lopez and to
+     whomever you think it advisable to do so."
+
+
+The Bishop of Palencia referred to in this letter is probably Bishop
+Fonseca--probably, because it is known that he did become Bishop of
+Palencia, although there is a difference of opinion among historians as
+to whether the date of his translation to that see was before or after
+this letter.  No matter, except that one is glad to think that an old
+enemy--for Fonseca and Columbus had bitter disagreements over the fitting
+out of various expeditions--had shown himself friendly at last.
+
+
+     Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, November 28,
+     1504.
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON,--I received your letters of the 15th of this month.
+     It is eight days since I wrote you and sent the letter by a courier.
+     I enclosed unsealed letters to many other persons, in order that you
+     might see them, and having read them, seal and deliver them.
+     Although this illness of mine troubles me greatly, I am preparing
+     for my departure in every way.  I would very much like to receive
+     the reply from their Highnesses and wish you might procure it: and
+     also I wish that their Highnesses would provide for the payment of
+     these poor people, who have passed through incredible hardships and
+     have brought them such great news that infinite thanks should be
+     given to God, our Lord, and they should rejoice greatly over it.
+     If I [lie ?] the 'Paralipomenon'--[ The Book of Chronicles]-- and
+     the Book of Kings and the Antiquities of Josephus, with very many
+     others, will tell what they know of this.  I hope in our Lord to
+     depart this coming week, but you must not write less often on that
+     account.  I have not heard from Carbajal and Jeronimo.  If they are
+     there, commend me to them.  The time is such that both Carbajals
+     ought to be at Court, if illness does not prevent them.  My regards
+     to Diego Mendez.
+
+     "I believe that his truth and efforts will be worth as much as the
+     lies of the Porras brothers.  The bearer of this letter is Martin de
+     Gamboa.  I am sending by him a letter to Juan Lopez and a letter of
+     credit.  Read the letter to Lopez and then give it to him.  If you
+     write me, send the letters to Luis de Soria that he may send them
+     wherever I am, because if I go in a litter, I believe it will be by
+     La Plata.--[The old Roman road from Merida to Salamanca.]--  May our
+     Lord have you in His holy keeping.  Your uncle has been very sick
+     and is now, from trouble with his jaws and his teeth.
+
+     "Done in Seville, November 28.
+
+     "Your father who loves you more than himself.
+
+                                                    .S.
+                                                  .S.A.S.
+                                                    XMY
+                                                 Xpo FERENS."
+
+
+Bartholomew Columbus and Ferdinand were remaining with Christopher at
+Seville; Bartholomew probably very nearly as ill as the Admiral, although
+we do not hear so many complaints about it.  At any rate Diego, being ay
+Court, was the great mainstay of his father; and you can see the sick man
+sitting there alone with his grievances, and looking to the next
+generation for help in getting them redressed.  Diego, it is to be
+feared, did not receive these letters with so much patience and attention
+as he might have shown, nor did he write back to his invalid father with
+the fulness and regularity which the old man craved.  It is a fault
+common to sons.  Those who are sons will know that it does not
+necessarily imply lack of affection on Diego's part; those who are
+fathers will realise how much Christopher longed for verbal assurance of
+interest and affection, even though he did not doubt their reality.  News
+of the serious illness of Queen Isabella had evidently reached Columbus,
+and was the chief topic of public interest.
+
+
+     Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,
+     December 1, 1504.
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON,--Since I received your letter of November 15 I have
+     heard nothing from you.  I wish that you would write me more
+     frequently.  I would like to receive a letter from you each hour.
+     Reason must tell you that now I have no other repose.  Many couriers
+     come each day, and the news is of such a nature and so abundant that
+     on hearing it all my hair stands on end; it is so contrary to what
+     my soul desires.  May it please the Holy Trinity to give health to
+     the Queen, our Lady, that she may settle what has already been
+     placed under discussion.  I wrote you by another courier Thursday,
+     eight days ago.  The courier must already be on his way back here.
+     I told you in that letter that my departure was certain, but that
+     the hope of my arrival there, according to experience, was very
+     uncertain, because my sickness is so bad, and the cold is so well
+     suited to aggravate it, that I could not well avoid remaining in
+     some inn on the road.  The litter and everything were ready.  The
+     weather became so violent that it appeared impossible to every one
+     to start when it was getting so bad, and that it was better for so
+     well-known a person as myself to take care of myself and try to
+     regain my health rather than place myself in danger.  I told you in
+     those letters what I now say, that you decided well in remaining
+     there (at such a time), and that it was right to commence occupying
+     yourself with our affairs; and reason strongly urges this.  It
+     appears to me that a good copy should be made of the chapter of that
+     letter which their Highnesses wrote me where they say they will
+     fulfil their promises to me and will place you in possession of
+     everything: and that this copy should be given to them with another
+     writing telling of my sickness, and that it is now impossible for me
+     to go and kiss their Royal feet and hands, and that the Indies are
+     being lost, and are on fire in a thousand places, and that I have
+     received nothing, and am receiving nothing, from the revenues
+     derived from them, and that no one dares to accept or demand
+     anything there for me, and I am living upon borrowed funds.  I spent
+     the money which I got there in bringing those people who went with
+     me back to their homes, for it would be a great burden upon my
+     conscience to have left them there and to have abandoned them.  This
+     must be made known to the Lord Bishop of Palencia, in whose favour
+     I have so much confidence, and also to the Lord Chamberlain.
+     I believed that Carbajal and Jeronimo would be there at such a time.
+     Our Lord is there, and He will order everything as He knows it to be
+     best for us.
+
+     "Carbajal reached here yesterday.  I wished to send him immediately
+     with this same order, but he excused himself profusely, saying that
+     his wife was at the point of death.  I shall see that he goes,
+     because he knows a great deal about these affairs.  I will also
+     endeavour to have your brother and your uncle go to kiss the hands
+     of Their Highnesses, and give them an account of the voyage if my
+     letters are not sufficient.  Take good care of your brother.  He has
+     a good disposition, and is no longer a boy.  Ten brothers would not
+     be too many for you.  I never found better friends to right or to
+     left than my brothers.  We must strive to obtain the government of
+     the Indies and then the adjustment of the revenues.  I gave you a
+     memorandum which told you what part of them belongs to me.  What
+     they gave to Carbajal was nothing and has turned to nothing.
+     Whoever desires to do so takes merchandise there, and so the eighth
+     is nothing, because, without contributing the eighth, I could send
+     to trade there without rendering account or going in company with
+     any one.  I said a great many times in the past that the
+     contribution of the eighth would come to nothing.  The eighth and
+     the rest belongs to me by reason of the concession which their
+     Highnesses made to me, as set forth in the book of my Privileges,
+     and also the third and the tenth.  Of the tenth I received nothing,
+     except the tenth of what their Highnesses receive; and it must be
+     the tenth of all the gold and other things which are found and
+     obtained, in whatever manner it may be, within this Admiralship, and
+     the tenth of all the merchandise which goes and comes from there,
+     after the expenses are deducted.  I have already said that in the
+     Book of Privileges the reason for this and for the rest which is
+     before the Tribunal of the Indies here in Seville, is clearly set
+     forth.
+
+     "We must strive to obtain a reply to my letter from their
+     Highnesses, and to have them order that these people be paid.  I
+     wrote in regard to this subject four days ago, and sent the letter
+     by Martin de Gamboa, and you must have seen the letter of Juan Lopez
+     with your own.
+
+     "It is said here that it has been ordered that three or four Bishops
+     of the Indies shall be sent or created, and that this matter is
+     referred to the Lord Bishop of Palencia.  After having commended me
+     to his Worship, tell him that I believe it will best serve their
+     Highnesses for me to talk with him before this matter is settled.
+
+     "Commend me to Diego Mendez, and show him this letter.  My illness
+     permits me to write only at night, because in the daytime my hands
+     are deprived of strength.  I believe that a son of Francisco Pinelo
+     will carry this letter.  Entertain him well, because he does
+     everything for me that he can, with much love and a cheerful
+     goodwill.  The caravel which broke her mast in starting from Santo
+     Domingo has arrived in the Algarves.  She brings the records of the
+     case of the Porras brothers.  Such ugly things and such grievous
+     cruelty as appear in this matter never were seen.  If their
+     Highnesses do not punish it, I do not know who will dare to go out
+     in their service with people.
+
+     "To-day is Monday.  I will endeavour to have your uncle and brother
+     start to-morrow.  Remember to write me very often, and tell Diego
+     Mendez to write at length.  Each day messengers go from here yonder.
+     May our Lord have you in His Holy keeping.
+
+     "Done in Seville, December 1.
+
+     "Your father who loves you as himself.
+
+                                                    .S.
+                                                  .S.A.S.
+                                                    XMY
+                                                 Xpo FERENS."
+
+
+The gout from which the Admiral suffered made riding impossible to him,
+and he had arranged to have himself carried to Court on a litter when he
+was able to move.  There is a grim and dismal significance in the
+particular litter that had been chosen: it was no other than the funeral
+bier which belonged to the Cathedral of Seville and had been built for
+Cardinal Mendoza.  A minute of the Cathedral Chapter records the granting
+to Columbus of the use of this strange conveyance; but one is glad to
+think that he ultimately made his journey in a less grim though more
+humble method.  But what are we to think of the taste of a man who would
+rather travel in a bier, so long as it had been associated with the
+splendid obsequies of a cardinal, than in the ordinary litter of every-
+day use?  It is but the old passion for state and splendour thus dismally
+breaking out again.
+
+He speaks of living on borrowed funds and of having devoted all his
+resources to the payment of his crew;, but that may be taken as an
+exaggeration.  He may have borrowed, but the man who can borrow easily
+from banks cannot be regarded as a poor man.  One is nevertheless
+grateful for these references, since they commemorate the Admiral's
+unfailing loyalty to those who shared his hardships, and his unwearied
+efforts to see that they received what was due to them.  Pleasant also
+are the evidences of warm family affection in those simple words of
+brotherly love, and the affecting advice to Diego that he should love his
+brother Ferdinand as Christopher loved Bartholomew.  It is a pleasant
+oasis in this dreary, sordid wailing after thirds and tenths and eighths.
+Good Diego Mendez, that honourable gentleman, was evidently also at Court
+at this time, honestly striving, we may be sure, to say a good word for
+the Admiral.
+
+Some time after this letter was written, and before the writing of the
+next, news reached Seville of the death of Queen Isabella.  For ten years
+her kind heart had been wrung by many sorrows.  Her mother had died in
+1496; the next year her only son and heir to the crown had followed; and
+within yet another year had died her favourite daughter, the Queen of
+Portugal.  Her other children were all scattered with the exception of
+Juana, whose semi-imbecile condition caused her parents an anxiety
+greater even than that caused by death.  As Isabella's life thus closed
+sombrely in, she applied herself more closely and more narrowly to such
+pious consolations as were available.  News from Flanders of the
+scandalous scenes between Philip and Juana in the summer of 1504 brought
+on an illness from which she really never recovered, a kind of feverish
+distress of mind and body in which her only alleviation was the
+transaction of such business as was possible for her in the direction of
+humanity and enlightenment.  She still received men of intellect and
+renown, especially travellers.  But she knew that her end was near, and
+as early as October she had made her will, in which her wishes as to the
+succession and government of Castile were clearly laid down.  There was
+no mention of Columbus in this will, which afterwards greatly mortified
+him; but it is possible that the poor Queen had by this time, even
+against her wish, come to share the opinions of her advisers that the
+rule of Columbus in the West Indies had not brought the most humane and
+happy results possible to the people there.
+
+During October and November her life thus beat itself away in a
+succession of duties faithfully performed, tasks duly finished,
+preparations for the great change duly made.  She died, as she would have
+wished to die, surrounded by friends who loved and admired her, and
+fortified by the last rites of the Church for her journey into the
+unknown.  Date, November 26, 1504, in the fifty-fourth year of her age.
+
+Columbus had evidently received the news from a public source, and felt
+mortified that Diego should not have written him a special letter.
+
+
+     Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,
+     December 3, 1504.
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON,--I wrote you at length day before yesterday and sent
+     it by Francisco Pinelo, and with this letter I send you a very full
+     memorandum.  I am very much astonished not to receive a letter from
+     you or from any one else, and this astonishment is shared by all who
+     know me.  Every one here has letters, and I, who have more reason to
+     expect them, have none.  Great care should be taken about this
+     matter.  The memorandum of which I have spoken above says enough,
+     and on this account I do not speak more at length here.  Your
+     brother and your uncle and Carbajal are going yonder.  You will
+     learn from them what is not said here.  May our Lord have you in His
+     Holy keeping.
+
+     "Done in Seville, December 3.
+
+     "Your father who loves you more than himself.
+
+                                                    .S.
+                                                  .S.A.S.
+                                                    XMY
+                                                 Xpo FERENS."
+
+
+     Document of COLUMBUS addressed to his Son, DIEGO, and intended to
+     accompany the preceding letter.
+
+     "A memorandum for you, my very dear son, Don Diego, of what occurs
+     to me at the present time which must be done:--The principal thing
+     is, affectionately and with great devotion to commend the soul of
+     the Queen, our Lady, to God.  Her life was always Catholic and Holy
+     and ready for all the things of His holy service, and for this
+     reason it must be believed that she is in His holy glory and beyond
+     the desires of this rough and wearisome world.  Then the next thing
+     is to be watchful and exert one's self in the service of the King,
+     our Lord, and to strive to keep him from being troubled.  His
+     Highness is the head of Christendom.  See the proverb which says
+     that when the head aches, all the members ache.  So that all good
+     Christians should entreat that he may have long life and health: and
+     those of us who are obliged to serve him more than others must join
+     in this supplication with great earnestness and diligence.  This
+     reason prompts me now with my severe illness to write you what I am
+     writing here, that his Highness may dispose matters for his service:
+     and for the better fulfilment I am sending your brother there, who,
+     although he is a child in days, is not a child in understanding; and
+     I am sending your uncle and Carbajal, so that if this, my writing,
+     is not sufficient, they, together with yourself, can furnish verbal
+     evidence.  In my opinion there is nothing so necessary for the
+     service of his Highness as the disposition and remedying of the
+     affair of the Indies.
+
+     "His Highness must now have there more than 40,000 or 50,000 gold
+     pieces.  I learned when I was there that the Governor had no desire
+     to send it to him.  It is believed among the other people as well
+     that there will be 150,000 pesos more, and the mines are very rich
+     and productive.  Most of the people there are common and ignorant,
+     and care very little for the circumstances.  The Governor is very
+     much hated by all of them, and it is to be feared that they may at
+     some time rebel.  If this should occur, which God forbid, the remedy
+     for the matter would then be difficult: and so it would be if
+     injustice were used toward them, either here or in other places,
+     with the great fame of the gold.  My opinion is that his Highness
+     should investigate this affair quickly and by means of a person who
+     is interested and who can go there with 150 or 200 people well
+     equipped, and remain there until it is well settled and without
+     suspicion, which cannot be done in less than three months: and that
+     an endeavour be made to raise two or three forces there.  The gold
+     there is exposed to great risk, as there are very few people to
+     protect it.  I say that there is a proverb here which says that the
+     presence of the owner makes the horse fat.  Here and wherever I may
+     be, I shall serve their Highnesses with joy, until my soul leaves
+     this body.
+
+     "Above I said that his Highness is the head of the Christians, and
+     that it is necessary for him to occupy himself in preserving them
+     and their lands.  For this reason people say that he cannot thus
+     provide a good government for all these Indies, and that they are
+     being lost and do not yield a profit, neither are they being handled
+     in a reasonable manner.  In my opinion it would serve him to intrust
+     this matter to some one who is distressed over the bad treatment of
+     his subjects.
+
+     "I wrote a very long letter to his Highness as soon as I arrived
+     here, fully stating the evils which require a prompt and efficient
+     remedy at once.  I have received no reply, nor have I seen any
+     provision made in the matter.  Some vessels are detained in San
+     Lucar by the weather.  I have told these gentlemen of the Board of
+     Trade that they must order them held until the King, our Lord, makes
+     provision in the matter, either by some person with other people,
+     or by writing.  This is very necessary and I know what I say.  It is
+     necessary that the authorities should order all the ports searched
+     diligently, to see that no one goes yonder to the Indies without
+     licence.  I have already said that there is a great deal of gold
+     collected in straw houses without any means of defence, and there
+     are many disorderly people in the country, and that the Governor is
+     hated, and that little punishment is inflicted and has been
+     inflicted upon those who have committed crimes and have come out
+     with their treasonable conduct approved.
+
+     "If his Highness decides to make some provision, it must be done at
+     once, so that these vessels may not be injured.
+
+     "I have heard that three Bishops are to be elected and sent to
+     Espanola.  If it pleases his Highness to hear me before concluding
+     this matter, I will tell in what manner God our Lord may be well
+     served and his Highness served and satisfied.
+
+     "I have given lengthy consideration to the provision for Espanola:"
+
+
+Yes, the Queen is in His Holy Glory, and beyond the desires of this rough
+and wearisome world; but we are not; we are still in a world where fifty
+thousand gold pieces can be of use to us, and where a word spoken in
+season, even in such a season of darkness, may have its effect with the
+King.  A strange time to talk to the King about gold; and perhaps Diego
+was wiser and kinder than his father thought in not immediately taking
+this strange document to King Ferdinand.
+
+
+     Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,
+     December 13, 1504
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON,--It is now eight days since your uncle and your
+     brother and Carbajal left here together, to kiss the royal hands of
+     his Highness, and to give an account of the voyage, and also to aid
+     you in the negotiation of whatever may prove to be necessary there.
+
+     "Don Ferdinand took from here 150 ducats to be expended at his
+     discretion.  He will have to spend some of it, but he will give you
+     what he has remaining.  He also carries a letter of credit for these
+     merchants.  You will see that it is very necessary to be careful in
+     dealing with them, because I had trouble there with the Governor, as
+     every one told me that I had there 11,000 or 12,000 castellanos, and
+     I had only 4000.  He wished to charge me with things for which I am
+     not indebted, and I, confiding in the promise of their Highnesses,
+     who ordered everything restored to me, decided to leave these
+     charges in the hope of calling him to account for them.  If any one
+     has money there, they do not dare ask for it, on account of his
+     haughtiness.  I very well know that after my departure he must have
+     received more than 5000 castellanos.  If it were possible for you to
+     obtain from his Highness an authoritative letter to the Governor,
+     ordering him to send the money without delay and a full account of
+     what belongs to me, by the person I might send there with my power
+     of attorney, it would be well; because he will not give it in any
+     other manner, neither to my friend Diaz or Velasquez, and they dare
+     not even speak of it to him.  Carbajal will very well know how this
+     must be done.  Let him see this letter.  The 150 ducats which Luis
+     de Soria sent you when I came are paid according to his desire.
+
+     "I wrote you at length and sent the letter by Don Ferdinand, also a
+     memorandum.  Now that I have thought over the matter further, I say
+     that, since at the time of my departure their Highnesses said over
+     their signature and verbally, that they would give me all that
+     belongs to me, according to my privileges--that the claim for the
+     third or the tenth and eighth mentioned in the memorandum must be
+     relinquished, and instead the chapter of their letter must be shown
+     where they write what I have said, and all that belongs to me must
+     be required, as you have it in writing in the Book of Privileges, in
+     which is also set forth the reason for my receiving the third,
+     eighth, and tenth; as there is always an opportunity to reduce the
+     sum desired by a person, although his Highness says in his letter
+     that he wishes to give me all that belongs to me.  Carbajal will
+     understand me very well if he sees this letter, and every one else
+     as well, as it is very clear.  I also wrote to his Highness and
+     finally reminded him that he must provide at once for this affair of
+     the Indies, that the people there may not be disturbed, and also
+     reminding him of the promise stated above.  You ought to see the
+     letter.
+
+     "With this letter I send you another letter of credit for the said
+     merchants.  I have already explained to you the reasons why expenses
+     should be moderated.  Show your uncle due respect, and treat your
+     brother as an elder brother should treat a younger.  You have no
+     other brother, and praised be our Lord, he is such a one as you need
+     very much.  He has proved and proves to be very intelligent.  Honour
+     Carbajal and Jeronimo and Diego Mendez.  Commend me to them all.  I
+     do not write them as there is nothing to write and this messenger is
+     in haste.  It is frequently rumoured here that the Queen, whom God
+     has, has left an order that I be restored to the possession of the
+     Indies.  On arrival, the notary of the fleet will send you the
+     records and the original of the case of the Porras brothers.  I have
+     received no news from your uncle and brother since they left.  The
+     water has been so high here that the river entered the city.
+
+     "If Agostin Italian and Francisco de Grimaldo do not wish to give
+     you the money you need, look for others there who are willing to
+     give it to you.  On the arrival here of your signature I will at
+     once pay them all that you have received: for at present there is
+     not a person here by whom I can send you money.
+
+     "Done to-day, Friday, December 13, 1504
+
+     "Your father who loves you more than himself.
+
+                                                    .S.
+                                                  .S.A.S.
+                                                    XMY
+                                                 Xpo FERENS."
+
+
+     Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO,
+     December 21, 1504.
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON, The Lord Adelantado and your brother and Carbajal
+     left here sixteen days ago to go to the Court.  They have not
+     written me since.  Don Ferdinand carried 150 ducats.  He must spend
+     what is necessary, and he carries a letter, that the merchants may
+     furnish you with money.  I have sent you another letter since, with
+     the endorsement of Francisco de Ribarol, by Zamora, the courier, and
+     told you that if you had made provision for yourself by means of my
+     letter, not to use that of Francisco de Ribarol.  I say the same now
+     in regard to another letter which I send you with this one, for
+     Francisco Doria, which letter I send you for greater security that
+     you may not fail to be provided with money.  I have already told you
+     how necessary it is to be careful in the expenditure of the money,
+     until their Highnesses give us law and justice.  I also told you
+     that I had spent 1200 castellanos in bringing these people to
+     Castile, of which his Highness owes me the greater part, and I wrote
+     him in regard to it asking him to order the account settled.
+
+     "If possible I should like to receive letters here each day.  I
+     complain of Diego Mendez and of Jeronimo, as they do not write me:
+     and then of the others who do not write when they arrive there.  We
+     must strive to learn whether the Queen, whom God has in His keeping,
+     said anything about me in her will, and we must hurry the Lord
+     Bishop of Palencia, who caused the possession of the Indies by their
+     Highnesses and my remaining in Castile, for I was already on my way
+     to leave it.  And the Lord Chamberlain of his Highness must also be
+     hurried.  If by chance the affair comes to discussion, you must
+     strive to have them see the writing which is in the Book of
+     Privileges, which shows the reason why the third, eighth, and tenth
+     are owing me, as I told you in another letter.
+
+     "I have written to the Holy Father in regard to my voyage, as he
+     complained of me because I did not write him.  I send you a copy of
+     the letter.  I would like to have the King, our Lord, or the Lord
+     Bishop of Palencia see it before I send the letter, in order to
+     avoid false representations.
+
+     "Camacho has told a thousand falsehoods about me.  To my regret I
+     ordered him arrested.  He is in the church.  He says that after the
+     Holidays are past, he will go there if he is able.  If I owe him, he
+     must show by what reason; for I make oath that I do not know it, nor
+     is it true.
+
+     "If without importunity a licence can be procured for me to go on
+     mule-back, I will try to leave for the Court after January, and I
+     will even go without this licence.  But haste must be made that the
+     loss of the Indies, which is now imminent, may not take place.  May
+     our Lord have you in His keeping.
+
+     "Done to-day, December 21.
+
+     "Your father who loves you more than himself.
+
+                                                    .S.
+                                                  .S.A.S.
+                                                    XMY
+                                                 Xpo FERENS."
+
+
+     "This tenth which they give me is not the tenth which was promised
+     me.  The Privileges tell what it is, and there is also due me the
+     tenth of the profit derived from merchandise and from all other
+     things, of which I have received nothing.  Carbajal understands me
+     well.  Also remind Carbajal to obtain a letter from his Highness for
+     the Governor, directing him to send his accounts and the money I
+     have there, at once.  And it would be well that a Repostero of his
+     Highness should go there to receive this money, as there must be a
+     large amount due me.  I will strive to have these gentlemen of the
+     Board of Trade send also to say to the Governor that he must send my
+     share together with the gold belonging to their Highnesses.  But the
+     remedy for the other matter must not be neglected there on this
+     account.  I say that 7000 or 8000 pesos must have passed to my
+     credit there, which sum has been received since I left, besides the
+     other money which was not given to me.
+
+     "To my very dear son Don Diego at the Court."
+
+
+All this struggling for the due payment of eighths and tenths makes
+wearisome reading, and we need not follow the Admiral into his
+distinctions between one kind of tenth and another.  There is something
+to be said on his side, it must be remembered; the man had not received
+what was due to him; and although he was not in actual poverty, his only
+property in this world consisted of these very thirds and eighths and
+tenths.  But if we are inclined to think poorly of the Admiral for his
+dismal pertinacity, what are we to think of the people who took advantage
+of their high position to ignore consistently the just claims made upon
+them?
+
+There is no end to the Admiral's letter-writing at this time.
+Fortunately for us his letter to the Pope has been lost, or else we
+should have to insert it here; and we have had quite enough of his
+theological stupors.  As for the Queen's will, there was no mention of
+the Admiral in it; and her only reference to the Indies showed that she
+had begun to realise some of the disasters following his rule there, for
+the provisions that are concerned with the New World refer exclusively to
+the treatment of the natives, to whose succour, long after they were past
+succour, the hand of Isabella was stretched out from the grave.  The
+licence to travel on mule-back which the Admiral asked for was made
+necessary by a law which had been passed forbidding the use of mules for
+this purpose throughout Spain.  There had been a scarcity of horses for
+mounting the royal cavalry, and it was thought that the breeding of
+horses had been neglected on account of the greater cheapness and utility
+of mules.  It was to encourage the use and breeding of horses that an
+interdict was laid on the use of mules, and only the very highest persons
+in the land were allowed to employ them.
+
+
+Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO,
+December 29, 1504.
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON,--I wrote you at length and sent it by Don Ferdinand,
+     who left to go yonder twenty-three days ago to-day, with the Lord
+     Adelantado and Carbajal, from whom I have since heard nothing.
+     Sixteen days ago to-day I wrote you and sent it by Zamora, the
+     courier, and I sent you a letter of credit for these merchants
+     endorsed by Francisco de Ribarol, telling them to give you the money
+     you might ask for.  And then, about eight days ago, I sent you by
+     another courier a letter endorsed by Francisco Soria, and these
+     letters are directed to Pantaleon and Agostin Italian, that they may
+     give it to you.  And with these letters goes a copy of a letter
+     which I wrote to the Holy Father in regard to the affairs of the
+     Indies, that he might not complain of me any more.  I sent this copy
+     for his Highness to see, or the Lord Bishop of Palencia, so as to
+     avoid false representations.  The payment of the people who went
+     with me has been delayed.  I have provided for them here what I have
+     been able.  They are poor and obliged to go in order to earn a
+     living.  They decided to go yonder.  They have been told here that
+     they will be dealt with as favourably as possible, and this is
+     right, although among them there are some who merit punishment more
+     than favours.  This is said of the rebels.  I gave these people a
+     letter for the Lord Bishop of Palencia.  Read it, and if it is
+     necessary for them to go and petition his Highness, urge your uncle
+     and brother and Carbajal to read it also, so that you can all help
+     them as much as possible.  It is right and a work of mercy, for no
+     one ever earned money with so many dangers and hardships and no one
+     has ever rendered such great service as these people.  It is said
+     that Camacho and Master Bernal wish to go there--two creatures for
+     whom God works few miracles: but if they go, it will be to do harm
+     rather than good.  They can do little because the truth always
+     prevails, as it did in Espanola, from which wicked people by means
+     of falsehoods have prevented any profit being received up to the
+     present time.  It is said that this Master Bernal was the beginning
+     of the treason.  He was taken and accused of many misdemeanours,
+     for each one of which he deserved to be quartered.  At the request
+     of your uncle and of others he was pardoned, on condition that if he
+     ever said the least word against me and my state the pardon should
+     be revoked and he should be under condemnation.  I send you a copy
+     of the case in this letter.  I send you a legal document about
+     Camacho.  For more than eight days he has not left the church on
+     account of his rash statements and falsehoods.  He has a will made
+     by Terreros, and other relatives of the latter have another will of
+     more recent date, which renders the first will null, as far as the
+     inheritance is concerned: and I am entreated to enforce the latter
+     will, so that Camacho will be obliged to restore what he has
+     received.  I shall order a legal document drawn up and served upon
+     him, because I believe it is a work of mercy to punish him, as he is
+     so unbridled in his speech that some one must punish him without the
+     rod: and it will not be so much against the conscience of the
+     chastiser, and will injure him more.  Diego Mendez knows Master
+     Bernal and his works very well.  The Governor wished to imprison him
+     at Espanola and left him to my consideration.  It is said that he
+     killed two men there with medicines in revenge for something of less
+     account than three beans.  I would be glad of the licence to travel
+     on muleback and of a good mule, if they can be obtained without
+     difficulty.  Consult all about our affairs, and tell them that I do
+     not write them in particular on account of the great pain I feel
+     when writing.  I do not say that they must do the same, but that
+     each one must write me and very often, for I feel great sorrow that
+     all the world should have letters from there each day, and I have
+     nothing, when I have so many people there.  Commend me to the Lord
+     Adelantado in his favour, and give my regards to your brother and to
+     all the others.
+
+     "Done at Seville, December 29.
+
+     "Your father who loves you more than himself.
+
+                                                    .S.
+                                                  .S.A.S.
+                                                    XMY
+                                                 Xpo FERENS."
+
+
+"I say further that if our affairs are to be settled according to
+conscience, that the chapter of the letter which their Highnesses wrote
+me when I departed, in which they say they will order you placed in
+possession, must be shown; and the writing must also be shown which is in
+the Book of Privileges, which shows how in reason and in justice the
+third and eighth and the tenth are mine.  There will always be
+opportunity to make reductions from this amount."
+
+Columbus's requests were not all for himself; nothing could be more
+sincere or generous than the spirit in which he always strove to secure
+the just payment of his mariners.
+
+Otherwise he is still concerned with the favour shown to those who were
+treasonable to him.  Camacho was still hiding in a church, probably from
+the wrath of Bartholomew Columbus; but Christopher has more subtle ways
+of punishment.  A legal document, he considers, will be better than a
+rod; "it will not be so much against the conscience of the chastiser, and
+will injure him (the chastised) more."
+
+
+     Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,
+     January 18, 1505.
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON,--I wrote you at length by the courier who will
+     arrive there to-day, and sent you a letter for the Lord Chamberlain.
+     I intended to inclose in it a copy of that chapter of the letter
+     from their Highnesses in which they say they will order you placed
+     in possession; but I forgot to do it here.  Zamora, the courier,
+     came.  I read your letter and also those of your uncle and brother
+     and Carbajal, and felt great pleasure in learning that they had
+     arrived well, as I had been very anxious about them.  Diego Mendez
+     will leave here in three or four days with the order of payment
+     prepared.  He will take a long statement of everything and I will
+     write to Juan Velasquez.  I desire his friendship and service.  I
+     believe that he is a very honourable gentleman.  If the Lord Bishop
+     of Palencia has come, or comes, tell him how much pleased I have
+     been with his prosperity, and that if I go there I must stop with
+     his Worship even if he does not wish it, and that we must return to
+     our first fraternal love.  And that he could not refuse it because
+     my service will force him to have it thus.  I said that the letter
+     for the Holy Father was sent that his Worship might see it if he was
+     there, and also the Lord Archbishop of Seville, as the King might
+     not have opportunity to read it.  I have already told you that the
+     petition to their Highnesses must be for the fulfilment of what they
+     wrote me about the possession and of the rest which was promised me.
+     I said that this chapter of the letter must be shown them and said
+     that it must not be delayed, and that this is advisable for an
+     infinite number of reasons.  His Highness may believe that, however
+     much he gives me, the increase of his exalted dominions and revenue
+     will be in the proportion of 100 to 1, and that there is no
+     comparison between what has been done and what is to be done.  The
+     sending of a Bishop to Espanola must be delayed until I speak to his
+     Highness.  It must not be as in the other cases when it was thought
+     to mend matters and they were spoiled.  There have been some cold
+     days here and they have caused me great fatigue and fatigue me now.
+     Commend me to the favour of the Lord Adelantado.  May our Lord guard
+     and bless you and your brother.  Give my regards to Carbajal and
+     Jeronimo.  Diego Mendez will carry a full pouch there.  I believe
+     that the affair of which you wrote can be very easily managed.  The
+     vessels from the Indies have not arrived from Lisbon.  They brought
+     a great deal of gold, and none for me.  So great a mockery was never
+     seen, for I left there 60,000 pesos smelted.  His Highness should
+     not allow so great an affair to be ruined, as is now taking place.
+     He now sends to the Governor a new provision.  I do not know what it
+     is about.  I expect letters each day.  Be very careful about
+     expenditures, for it is necessary.
+
+     "Done January 18.
+     "Your father who loves you more than himself.
+
+
+There is playful reference here to Fonseca, with whom Columbus was
+evidently now reconciled; and he was to be buttonholed and made to read
+the Admiral's letter to the Pope.  Diego Mendez is about to start, and is
+to make a "long statement"; and in the meantime the Admiral will write as
+many long letters as he has time for.  Was there no friend at hand, I
+wonder, with wit enough to tell the Admiral that every word he wrote
+about his grievances was sealing his doom, so far as the King was
+concerned.?  No human being could have endured with patience this
+continuous heavy firing at long range to which the Admiral subjected his
+friends at Court; every post that arrived was loaded with a shrapnel of
+grievances, the dull echo of which must have made the ears of those who
+heard it echo with weariness.  Things were evidently humming in Espanola;
+large cargoes of negroes had been sent out to take the place of the dead
+natives, and under the harsh driving of Ovando the mines were producing
+heavily.  The vessels that arrived from the Indies brought a great deal
+of gold; "but none for me."
+
+
+     Letter written by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to his Son, DON DIEGO,
+     February 5, 1505.
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON,--Diego Mendez left here Monday, the 3rd of this
+     month.  After his departure I talked with Amerigo Vespucci, the
+     bearer of this letter, who is going yonder, where he is called in
+     regard to matters of navigation.  He was always desirous of pleasing
+     me.  He is a very honourable man.  Fortune has been adverse to him
+     as it has been to many others.  His labours have not profited him as
+     much as reason demands.  He goes for me, and is very desirous of
+     doing something to benefit me if it is in his power.  I do not know
+     of anything in which I can instruct him to my benefit, because I do
+     not know what is wanted of him there.  He is going with the
+     determination to do everything for me in his power.  See what he can
+     do to profit me there, and strive to have him do it; for he will do
+     everything, and will speak and will place it in operation: and it
+     must all be done secretly so that there may be no suspicion.
+
+     "I have told him all that could be told regarding this matter, and
+     have informed him of the payment which has been made to me and is
+     being made.  This letter is for the Lord Adelantado also, that he
+     may see how Amerigo Vespucci can be useful, and advise him about it.
+     His Highness may believe that his ships went to the best and richest
+     of the Indies, and if anything remains to be learned more than has
+     been told, I will give the information yonder verbally, because it
+     is impossible to give it in writing.  May our Lord have you in his
+     Holy keeping.
+
+     "Done in Seville, February 5.
+
+     "Your father who loves you more than himself.
+
+
+This letter has a significance which raises it out of the ruck of this
+complaining correspondence.  Amerigo Vespucci had just returned from his
+long voyage in the West, when he had navigated along an immense stretch
+of the coast of America, both north and south, and had laid the
+foundations of a fame which was, for a time at least, to eclipse that of
+Columbus.  Probably neither of the two men realised it at this interview,
+or Columbus would hardly have felt so cordially towards the man who was
+destined to rob him of so much glory.  As a matter of fact the practical
+Spaniards were now judging entirely by results; and a year or two later,
+when the fame of Columbus had sunk to insignificance, he was merely
+referred to as the discoverer of certain islands, while Vespucci, who
+after all had only followed in his lead, was hailed as the discoverer of
+a great continent.  Vespucci has been unjustly blamed for this state of
+affairs, although he could no more control the public estimate of his
+services than Columbus could.  He was a more practical man than Columbus,
+and he made a much better impression on really wise and intelligent men;
+and his discoveries were immediately associated with trade and colonial
+development, while Columbus had little to show for his discoveries during
+his lifetime but a handful of gold dust and a few cargoes of slaves.  At
+any rate it was a graceful act on the part of Vespucci, whose star was in
+the ascendant, to go and seek out the Admiral, whose day was fast verging
+to night; it was one of those disinterested actions that live and have a
+value of their own, and that shine out happily amid the surrounding murk
+and confusion.
+
+
+     Letter signed by CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS to DON DIEGO, his Son,
+     February 25, 1505.
+
+     "VERY DEAR SON,--The Licientiate de Zea is a person whom I desire to
+     honour.  He has in his charge two men who are under prosecution at
+     the hands of justice, as shown by the information which is inclosed
+     in this letter.  See that Diego Mendez places the said petition with
+     the others, that they may be given to his Highness during Holy Week
+     for pardon.  If the pardon is granted, it is well, and if not, look
+     for some other manner of obtaining it.  May our Lord have you in His
+     Holy keeping.  Done in Seville, February 25, 1505.  I wrote you and
+     sent it by Amerigo Vespucci.  See that he sends you the letter
+     unless you have already received it.
+
+     "Your father.
+                    Xpo FERENS.//"
+
+
+This is the last letter of Columbus known to us otherwise an entirely
+unimportant document, dealing with the most transient affairs.  With it
+we gladly bring to an end this exposure of a greedy and querulous period,
+which speaks so eloquently for itself that the less we say and comment on
+it the better.
+
+In the month of May the Admiral was well enough at last to undertake the
+journey to Segovia.  He travelled on a mule, and was accompanied by his
+brother Bartholomew and his son Ferdinand.  When he reached the Court he
+found the King civil and outwardly attentive to his recitals, but
+apparently content with a show of civility and outward attention.
+Columbus was becoming really a nuisance; that is the melancholy truth.
+The King had his own affairs to attend to; he was already meditating a
+second marriage, and thinking of the young bride he was to bring home to
+the vacant place of Isabella; and the very iteration of Columbus's
+complaints and demands had made them lose all significance for the King.
+He waved them aside with polite and empty promises, as people do the
+demands of importunate children; and finally, to appease the Admiral and
+to get rid of the intolerable nuisance of his applications, he referred
+the whole question, first to Archbishop DEA, and then to the body of
+councillors which had been appointed to interpret Queen Isabella's will.
+The whole question at issue was whether or not the original agreement
+with Columbus, which had been made before his discoveries, should be
+carried out.  The King, who had foolishly subscribed to it simply as a
+matter of form, never believing that anything much could come of it, was
+determined that it should not be carried out, as it would give Columbus a
+wealth and power to which no mere subject of a crown was entitled.  The
+Admiral held fast to his privileges; the only thing that he would consent
+to submit to arbitration was the question of his revenues; but his titles
+and territorial authorities he absolutely stuck to.  Of course the
+council did exactly what the King had done.  They talked about the thing
+a great deal, but they did nothing.  Columbus was an invalid and broken
+man, who might die any day, and it was obviously to their interest to
+gain time by discussion and delay--a cruel game for our Christopher, who
+knew his days on earth to be numbered, and who struggled in that web of
+time in which mortals try to hurry the events of the present and delay
+the events of the future.  Meanwhile Philip of Austria and his wife
+Juana, Isabella's daughter, had arrived from Flanders to assume the crown
+of Castile, which Isabella had bequeathed to them.  Columbus saw a chance
+for himself in this coming change, and he sent Bartholomew as an envoy to
+greet the new Sovereigns, and to enlist their services on the Admiral's
+behalf.  Bartholomew was very well received, but he was too late to be of
+use to the Admiral, whom he never saw again; and this is our farewell to
+Bartholomew, who passes out of our narrative here.  He went to Rome after
+Christopher's death on a mission to the Pope concerning some fresh
+voyages of discovery; and in 1508 he made, so far as we know, his one
+excursion into romance, when he assisted at the production of an
+illegitimate little girl--his only descendant.  He returned to Espanola
+under the governorship of his nephew Diego, and died there in 1514--
+stern, valiant, brotherly soul, whose devotion to Christopher must be for
+ever remembered and honoured with the name of the Admiral.
+
+
+From Segovia Columbus followed the Court to Salamanca and thence to
+Valladolid, where his increasing illness kept him a prisoner after the
+Court had left to greet Philip and Juana.  He had been in attendance upon
+it for nearly a year, and without any results: and now, as his infirmity
+increased, he turned to the settling of his own affairs, and drawing up
+of wills and codicils--all very elaborate and precise.  In these
+occupations his worldly affairs were duly rounded off; and on May 19,
+1506, having finally ratified a will which he had made in Segovia a year
+before, in which the descent of his honours was entailed upon Diego and
+his heirs, or failing him Ferdinand and his heirs, or failing him
+Bartholomew and his heirs, he turned to the settlement of his soul.
+
+His illness had increased gradually but surely, and he must have known
+that he was dying.  He was not without friends, among them the faithful
+Diego Mendez, his son Ferdinand, and a few others.  His lodging was in a
+small house in an unimportant street of Valladolid, now called the "Calle
+de Colon"; the house, .No. 7, still standing, and to be seen by curious
+eyes.  As the end approached, the Admiral, who was being attended by
+Franciscan monks, had himself clothed in a Franciscan habit; and so, on
+the 20th May 1506, he lay upon his bed, breathing out his life.
+
+               .  .  .  And as strange thoughts
+               Grow with a certain humming in my ears,
+               About the life before I lived this life,
+               And this life too, Popes, Cardinals, and priests,
+               Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes
+               And new-found agate urns fresh as day .  .  .
+
+.  .  .  we do not know what his thoughts were, as the shadows grew
+deeper about him, as the sounds of the world, the noises from the sunny
+street, grew fainter, and the images and sounds of memory clearer and
+louder.  Perhaps as he lay there with closed eyes he remembered things
+long forgotten, as dying people do; sounds and smells of the Vico Dritto
+di Ponticelli, and the feel of the hot paving-stones down which his
+childish feet used to run to the sea; noises of the sea also, the
+drowning swish of waters and sudden roar of breakers sounding to
+anxiously strained ears in the still night; bright sunlit pictures of
+faraway tropical shores, with handsome olive figures glistening in the
+sun; the sight of strange faces, the sound of strange speech, the smell
+of a strange land; the glitter of gold; the sudden death-shriek breaking
+the stillness of some sylvan glade; the sight of blood on the grass .  .
+.  .  The Admiral's face undergoes a change; there is a stir in the room;
+some one signs to the priest Gaspar, who brings forth his sacred wafer
+and holy oils and administers the last sacraments.  The wrinkled eyelids
+flutter open, the sea-worn voice feebly frames the responses; the dying
+eyes are fixed on the crucifix; and--"In manus tuas Domine commendo
+spiritum meum."  The Admiral is dead.
+
+He was in his fifty-sixth year, already an old man in body and mind; and
+his death went entirely unmarked except by his immediate circle of
+friends.  Even Peter Martyr, who was in Valladolid just before and just
+after it, and who was writing a series of letters to various
+correspondents giving all the news of his day, never thought it worth
+while to mention that Christopher Columbus was dead.  His life flickered
+out in the completest obscurity.  It is not even known where he was first
+buried; but probably it was in the Franciscan convent at Valladolid.
+This, however, was only a temporary resting-place; and a few years later
+his body was formally interred in the choir of the monastery of Las
+Cuevas at Seville, there to lie for thirty years surrounded by continual
+chauntings.  After that it was translated to the cathedral in San
+Domingo; rested there for 250 years, and then, on the cession of that
+part of the island to France, the body was removed to Cuba.  But the
+Admiral was by this time nothing but a box of bones and dust, as also
+were brother Bartholomew and son Diego, and Diego's son, all collected
+together in that place.  There were various examinations of the bone-
+boxes; one, supposed to be the Admiral's, was taken to Cuba and solemnly
+buried there; and lately, after the conquest of the island in the
+Spanish-American War, this box of bones was elaborately conveyed to
+Seville, where it now rests.
+
+But in the meanwhile the Chapter of the cathedral in San Domingo had made
+new discoveries and examinations; had found another box of bones, which
+bore to them authentic signs that the dust it contained was the Admiral's
+and not his grandson's; and in spite of the Academy of History at Madrid,
+it is indeed far from unlikely that the Admiral's dust does not lie in
+Spain or Cuba, but in San Domingo still.  Whole books have been written
+about these boxes of bones; learned societies have argued about them,
+experts have examined the bones and the boxes with microscopes; and
+meantime the dust of Columbus, if we take the view that an error was
+committed in the transference to Cuba, is not even collected all in one
+box.  A sacrilegious official acquired some of it when the boxes were
+opened, and distributed it among various curiosity-hunters, who have
+preserved it in caskets of crystal and silver.  Thus a bit of him is worn
+by an American lady in a crystal locket; a pinch of him lies
+in a glass vial in a New York mansion; other pinches in the Lennox
+Library, New York, in the Vatican, and in the University of Pavia.  In
+such places, if the Admiral should fail to appear at the first note of
+their trumpets, must the Angels of the Resurrection make search.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MAN COLUMBUS
+
+It is not in any leaden box or crystal vase that we must search for the
+true remains of Christopher Columbus.  Through these pages we have
+traced, so far as has been possible, the course of his life, and followed
+him in what he did; all of which is but preparation for our search for
+the true man, and just estimate of what he was.  We have seen, dimly,
+what his youth was; that he came of poor people who were of no importance
+to the world at large; that he earned his living as a working man; that
+he became possessed of an Idea; that he fought manfully and diligently
+until he had realised it; and that then he found himself in a position
+beyond his powers to deal with, not being a strong enough swimmer to hold
+his own in the rapid tide of events which he himself had set flowing; and
+we have seen him sinking at last in that tide, weighed down by the very
+things for which he had bargained and stipulated.  If these pages had
+been devoted to a critical examination of the historical documents on
+which his life-story is based we should also have found that he
+continually told lies about himself, and misrepresented facts when the
+truth proved inconvenient to him; that he was vain and boastful to a
+degree that can only excite our compassion.  He was naturally and
+sincerely pious, and drew from his religion much strength and spiritual
+nourishment; but he was also capable of hypocrisy, and of using the self-
+same religion as a cloak for his greed and cruelty.  What is the final
+image that remains in our minds of such a man?  To answer this question
+we must examine his life in three dimensions.  There was its great
+outline of rise, zenith, and decline; there was its outward history in
+minute detail, and its conduct in varying circumstances; and there was
+the inner life of the man's soul, which was perhaps simpler than some of
+us think.  And first, as to his life as a single thing.  It rose in
+poverty, it reached a brief and dazzling zenith of glory, it set in
+clouds and darkness; the fame of it suffered a long night of eclipse,
+from which it was rescued and raised again to a height of glory which
+unfortunately was in sufficiently founded on fact; and as a reaction from
+this, it has been in danger of becoming entirely discredited, and the man
+himself denounced as a fraud.  The reason for these surprising changes is
+that in those fifty-five years granted to Columbus for the making of his
+life he did not consistently listen to that inner voice which alone can
+hold a man on any constructive path.  He listened to it at intervals, and
+he drew his inspiration from it; but he shut his ears when it had served
+him, when it had brought him what he wanted.  In his moments of success
+he guided himself by outward things; and thus he was at one moment a seer
+and ready to be a martyr, and at the next moment he was an opportunist,
+watching to see which way the wind would blow, and ready to trim his
+sails in the necessary direction.  Such conduct of a man's life does not
+make for single light or for true greatness; rather for dim, confused
+lights, and lofty heights obscured in cloud.
+
+If we examine his life in detail we find this alternating principle of
+conduct revealed throughout it.  He was by nature clever, kind-hearted,
+rather large-souled, affectionate, and not very honest; all the acts
+prompted by his nature bear the stamp of these qualities.  To them his
+early years had probably added little except piety, sharp practice, and
+that uncomfortable sense, often bred amid narrow and poor surroundings,
+that one must keep a sharp look-out for oneself if one is to get a share
+of the world's good things.  Something in his blood, moreover, craved for
+dignity and the splendour of high-sounding titles; craved for power also,
+and the fulfilment of an arrogant pride.  All these things were in his
+Ligurian blood, and he breathed them in with the very air of Genoa.  His
+mind was of the receptive rather than of the constructive kind, and it
+was probably through those long years spent between sea voyages and brief
+sojourns with his family in Genoa or Savona that he conceived that vague
+Idea which, as I have tried to show, formed the impulse of his life
+during its brief initiative period.  Having once received this Idea of
+discovery and like all other great ideas, it was in the air at the time
+and was bound to take shape in some human brain--he had all his native
+and personal qualities to bring to its support.  The patience to await
+its course he had learned from his humble and subordinate life.  The
+ambition to work for great rewards was in his blood and race; and to
+belief in himself, his curious vein of mystical piety was able to add the
+support of a ready belief in divine selection.  This very time of waiting
+and endurance of disappointments also helped to cultivate in his
+character two separate qualities--an endurance or ability to withstand
+infinite hardship and disappointment; and also a greedy pride that
+promised itself great rewards for whatever should be endured.
+
+In all active matters Columbus was what we call a lucky man.  It was luck
+that brought him to Guanahani; and throughout his life this element of
+good luck continually helped him.  He was lucky, that is to say, in his
+relation with inanimate things; but in his relations with men he was
+almost as consistently unlucky.  First of all he was probably a bad judge
+of men.  His humble origin and his lack of education naturally made him
+distrustful.  He trusted people whom he should have regarded with
+suspicion, and he was suspicious of those whom he ought to have known he
+could trust.  If people pleased him, he elevated them with absurd
+rapidity to stations far beyond their power to fill, and then wondered
+that they sometimes turned upon him; if they committed crimes against
+him, he either sought to regain their favour by forgiving them, or else
+dogged them with a nagging, sulky resentment, and expected every one else
+to punish them also.  He could manage men if he were in the midst of
+them; there was something winning as well as commanding about his actual
+presence, and those who were devoted to him would have served him to the
+death.  But when he was not on the spot all his machineries and affairs
+went to pieces; he had no true organising ability; no sooner did he take
+his hand off any affair for which he was responsible than it immediately
+came to confusion.  All these defects are to be attributed to his lack of
+education and knowledge of the world.  Mental discipline is absolutely
+necessary for a man who would discipline others; and knowledge of the
+world is essential for one who would successfully deal with men, and
+distinguish those whom he can from those whom he cannot trust.  Defects
+of this nature, which sometimes seem like flaws in the man's character,
+may be set down to this one disability--that he was not educated and was
+not by habit a man of the world.
+
+All his sins of misgovernment, then, may be condoned on the ground that
+governing is a science, and that Columbus had never learned it.  What we
+do find, however, is that the inner light that had led him across the
+seas never burned clearly for him again, and was never his guide in the
+later part of his life.  Its radiance was quenched by the gleam of gold;
+for there is no doubt that Columbus was a victim of that baleful
+influence which has caused so much misery in this world.  He was greedy
+of gold for himself undoubtedly; but he was still more greedy of it for
+Spain.  It was his ambition to be the means of filling the coffers of the
+Spanish Sovereigns and so acquiring immense dignity and glory for
+himself.  He believed that gold was in itself a very precious and
+estimable thing; he knew that masses and candles could be bought for it,
+and very real spiritual privileges; and as he made blunder after blunder,
+and saw evil after evil heaping itself on his record in the New World, he
+became the more eager and frantic to acquire such a treasure of gold that
+it would wipe out the other evils of his administration.  And once
+involved in that circle, there was no help for him.
+
+The man himself was a simple man; capable, when the whole of his various
+qualities were directed upon one single thing, of that greatness which is
+the crown of simplicity.  Ambition was the keynote of his life; not an
+unworthy keynote, by any means, if only the ambition be sound; but one
+serious defect of Columbus's ambition was that it was retrospective
+rather than perspective.  He may have had, before he sailed from Palos,
+an ambition to be the discoverer of a New World; but I do not think he
+had.  He believed there were islands or land to be discovered in the West
+if only he pushed on far enough; and he was ambitious to find them and
+vindicate his belief.  Afterwards, when he had read a little more, and
+when he conceived the plan of pretending that he had all along meant to
+discover the Indies and a new road to the East, he acted in accordance
+with that pretence; he tried to make his acts appear retrospectively as
+though they had been prompted by a design quite different from that by
+which they had really been prompted.  When he found that his discovery
+was regarded as a great scientific feat, he made haste to pretend that it
+had all along been meant as such, and was in fact the outcome of an
+elaborate scientific theory.  In all this there is nothing for praise or
+admiration.  It indicates the presence of moral disease; but fortunately
+it is functional rather than organic disease.  He was right and sound at
+heart; but he spread his sails too readily to the great winds of popular
+favour, and the result was instability to himself, and often danger of
+shipwreck to his soul.
+
+The ultimate test of a man's character is how he behaves in certain
+circumstances when there is no great audience to watch him, and when
+there is no sovereign close at hand with bounties and rewards to offer.
+In a word, what matters most is a man's behaviour, not as an admiral, or
+a discoverer, or a viceroy, or a courtier, but as a man.  In this respect
+Columbus's character rings true.  If he was little on little occasions,
+he was also great on great occasions.  The inner history of his fourth
+voyage, if we could but know it and could take all the circumstances into
+account, would probably reveal a degree of heroic endurance that has
+never been surpassed in the history of mankind.  Put him as a man face to
+face with a difficulty, with nothing but his wits to devise with and his
+two hands to act with, and he is never found wanting.  And that is the
+kind of man of whom discoverers are made.  The mere mathematician may
+work out the facts with the greatest accuracy and prove the existence of
+land at a certain point; but there is great danger that he may be knocked
+down by a club on his first landing on the beach, and never bring home
+any news of his discovery.  The great courtier may do well for himself
+and keep smooth and politic relations with kings; the great administrator
+may found a wonderful colony; but it is the man with the wits and the
+hands, and some bigness of heart to tide him over daunting passages, that
+wins through the first elementary risks of any great discovery.  Properly
+considered, Columbus's fame should rest simply on the answer to the
+single question, "Did he discover new lands as he said he would?"  That
+was the greatest thing he could do, and the fact that he failed to do a
+great many other things afterwards, failed the more conspicuously because
+his attempts were so conspicuous, should have no effect on our estimate
+of his achievement.  The fame of it could no more be destroyed by himself
+than it can be destroyed by us.
+
+True understanding of a man and estimate of his character can only be
+arrived at by methods at once more comprehensive and more subtle than
+those commonly employed among men.  Everything that he sees, does, and
+suffers has its influence on the moulding of his character; and he must
+be considered in relation to his physical environment, no less than to
+his race and ancestry.  Christopher Columbus spent a great part of his
+active life on the sea; it was sea-life which inspired him with his great
+Idea, it was by the conquest of the sea that he realised it; it was on
+the sea that all his real triumphs over circumstance and his own weaker
+self were won.  The influences at work upon a man whose life is spent on
+the sea are as different from those at work upon one who lives on the
+fields as the environment of a gannet is different from the environment
+of a skylark: and yet how often do we really attempt to make due
+allowance for this great factor and try to estimate the extent of its
+moulding influence?
+
+To live within sound or sight of the sea is to be conscious of a voice or
+countenance that holds you in unyielding bonds.  The voice, being
+continuous, creeps into the very pulses and becomes part of the pervading
+sound or silence of a man's environment; and the face, although it never
+regards him, holds him with its changes and occupies his mind with its
+everlasting riddle.  Its profound inattention to man is part of its power
+over his imagination; for although it is so absorbed and busy, and has
+regard for sun and stars and a melancholy frowning concentration upon the
+foot of cliffs, it is never face to face with man: he can never come
+within the focus of its great glancing vision.  It is somewhere beyond
+time and space that the mighty perspective of those focal rays comes to
+its point; and they are so wide and eternal in their sweep that we should
+find their end, could we but trace them, in a condition far different
+from that in which our finite views and ethics have place.  In the man
+who lives much on the sea we always find, if he be articulate, something
+of the dreamer and the mystic; that very condition of mind, indeed, which
+we have traced in Columbus, which sometimes led him to such heights, and
+sometimes brought him to such variance with the human code.
+
+A face that will not look upon you can never give up its secret to you;
+and the face of the sea is like the face of a picture or a statue round
+which you may circle, looking at it from this point and from that, but
+whose regard is fixed on something beyond and invisible to you; or it is
+like the face of a person well known to you in life, a face which you
+often see in various surroundings, from different angles, now
+unconscious, now in animated and smiling intercourse with some one else,
+but which never turns upon you the light of friendly knowledge and
+recognition; in a word, it is unconscious of you, like all elemental
+things.  In the legend of the Creation it is written that when God saw
+the gathering together of the waters which he called the Seas, he saw
+that it was good; and he perhaps had the right to say so.  But the man
+who uses the sea and whose life's pathway is laid on its unstable surface
+can hardly sum up his impressions of it so simply as to say that it is
+good.  It is indeed to him neither good nor bad; it is utterly beyond and
+outside all he knows or invents of good and bad, and can never have any
+concern with his good or his bad.  It remains the pathway and territory
+of powers and mysteries, thoughts and energies on a gigantic and
+elemental scale; and that is why the mind of man can never grapple with
+the unconsciousness of the sea or his eye meet its eye.  Yet it is the
+mariner's chief associate, whether as adversary or as ally; his attitude
+to things outside himself is beyond all doubt influenced by his attitude
+towards it; and a true comprehension of the man Columbus must include a
+recognition of this constant influence on him, and of whatever effect
+lifelong association with so profound and mysterious an element may have
+had on his conduct in the world of men.  Better than many documents as an
+aid to our understanding of him would be intimate association with the
+sea, and prolonged contemplation of that face with which he was so
+familiar.  We can never know the heart of it, but we can at least look
+upon the face, turned from us though it is, upon which he looked.  Cloud
+shadows following a shimmer of sunlit ripples; lines and runes traced on
+the surface of a blank calm; salt laughter of purple furrows with the
+foam whipping off them; tides and eddies, whirls, overfalls, ripples,
+breakers, seas mountains high-they are but movements and changing
+expressions on an eternal countenance that once held his gaze and wonder,
+as it will always hold the gaze and wonder of those who follow the sea.
+
+So much of the man Christopher Columbus, who once was and no longer is;
+perished, to the last bone and fibre of him, off the face of the earth,
+and living now only by virtue of such truth as there was in him; who once
+manfully, according to the light that he had, bore Christ on his
+shoulders across stormy seas, and found him often, in that dim light, a
+heavy and troublesome burden; who dropped light and burden together on
+the shores of his discovery, and set going in that place of peace such a
+conflagration as mankind is not likely to see again for many a
+generation, if indeed ever again, in this much-tortured world, such
+ancient peace find place.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Presence of the owner makes the horse fat
+Spaniards sometimes hanged thirteen of them in a row
+Spaniards undertook to teach the heathen the Christian religion
+The cross and the sword, the whip-lash and the Gospel
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Christopher Columbus, v8
+by Filson Young
+
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