THE CONSENT OF SPAIN
Once more; in the last days of the year 1491, Columbus rode into the
brilliant camp which he had quitted a few weeks before with so heavy a
heart. Things were changed now. Instead of being a suitor, making a
nuisance of himself, and forcing his affairs on the attention of
unwilling officials, he was now an invited and honoured guest; much more
than that, he was in the position of one who believed that he had a great
service to render to the Crown, and who was at last to be permitted to
render it.
Even now, at the eleventh hour, there was one more brief interruption.
On the 1st of January 1492 the last of the Moorish kings sent in his
surrender to King Ferdinand, whom he invited to come and take possession
of the city of Granada; and on the next day the Spanish army marched into
that city, where, in front of the Alhambra, King Ferdinand received the
keys of the castle and the homage of the Moorish king. The wars of eight
centuries were at an end, and the Christian banner of Spain floated at
last over the whole land. Victory and success were in the air, and the
humble Genoese adventurer was to have his share in them. Negotiations of
a practical nature were now begun; old friends--Talavera, Luis de
Santangel, and the Grand Cardinal himself--were all brought into
consultation with the result that matters soon got to the documentary
stage. Here, however, there was a slight hitch. It was not simply a
matter of granting two, or three ships. The Genoese was making a
bargain, and asking an impossible price. Even the great grandees and
Court officials, accustomed to the glitter and dignity of titles, rubbed
their eyes with astonishment, when they saw what Columbus was demanding.
He who had been suing for privileges was now making conditions. And what
conditions! He must be created Admiral of all the Ocean Seas and of the
new lands, with equal privileges and prerogatives as those appertaining
to the High Admiral of Castile, the supreme naval officer of Spain.
Not content with sea dignities, he was also to be Viceroy and
Governor-General in all islands or mainlands that he might acquire; he
wanted a tenth part of the profits resulting from his discoveries, in
perpetuity; and he must have the permanent right of contributing an
eighth part of the cost of the equipment and have an additional eighth
part of the profits; and all his heirs and descendants for ever were to
have the same privileges. These conditions were on such a scale as no
sovereign could readily approve. Columbus’s lack of pedigree, and the
fact also that he was a foreigner, made them seem the more preposterous;
for although he might receive kindness and even friendship from some of
the grand Spaniards with whom he associated, that friendship and
kindness were given condescendingly and with a smile. He was delightful
when he was merely proposing as a mariner to confer additional grandeur
and glory on the Crown; but when it came to demanding titles and
privileges which would make him rank with the highest grandees in, the
land, the matter took on quite a different colour. It was nonsense; it
could not be allowed; and many were the friendly hints that Columbus
doubtless received at this time to relinquish his wild demands and not
to overreach himself.
But to the surprise and dismay of his friends, who really wished him to
have a chance of distinguishing himself, and were shocked at the
impediments he was now putting in his own way, the man from Genoa stood
firm. What he proposed to do, he said, was worthy of the rewards that he
asked; they were due to the importance and grandeur of his scheme, and so
on. Nor did he fail to point out that the bestowal of them was a matter
altogether contingent on results; if there were no results, there would
be no rewards; if there were results, they would be worthy of the
rewards. This action of Columbus’s deserves close study. He had come to
a turning-point in his life. He had been asking, asking, asking, for six
years; he had been put off and refused over and over again; people were
beginning to laugh at him for a madman; and now, when a combination of
lucky chances had brought him to the very door of success, he stood
outside the threshold bargaining for a preposterous price before he would
come in. It seemed like the densest stupidity. What is the explanation
of it?
The only explanation of it is to be found in the character of Columbus.
We must try to see him as he is in this forty-second year of his life,
bargaining with notaries, bishops, and treasurers; we must try to see
where these forty years have brought him, and what they have made of him.
Remember the little boy that played in the Vico Dritto di Ponticello,
acquainted with poverty, but with a soul in him that could rise beyond it
and acquire something of the dignity of that Genoa, arrogant, splendid
and devout, which surrounded him during his early years. Remember his
long life of obscurity at sea, and the slow kindling of the light of
faith in something beyond the familiar horizons; remember the social
inequality of his marriage, his long struggle with poverty, his long
familiarity with the position of one who asked and did not receive; the
many rebuffs and indignities which his Ligurian pride must have received
at the hands of all those Spanish dignitaries and grandees--remember all
this, and then you will perhaps not wonder so much that Columbus, who was
beginning to believe himself appointed by Heaven to this task of
discovery, felt that he had much to pay himself back for. One must
recognise him frankly for what he was, and for no conventional hero of
romance; a man who would reconcile his conscience with anything, and
would stop at nothing in the furtherance of what he deemed a good object;
and a man at the same time who had a conscience to reconcile, and would,
whenever it was necessary, laboriously and elaborately perform the act of
reconciliation. When he made these huge demands in Granada he was
gambling with his chances; but he was a calculating gambler, just about
as cunning and crafty in the weighing of one chance against another as a
gambler with a conscience can be; and he evidently realised that his own
valuation of the services he proposed to render would not be without its
influence on his sovereign’s estimate of them. At any rate he was
justified by the results, for on the 17th of April 1492, after a deal of
talk and bargaining, but apparently without any yielding on Columbus’s
part, articles of capitulation were drawn up in which the following
provisions were made:--
First, that Columbus and his heirs for ever should have the title and
office of Admiral in all the islands and continents of the ocean that he
or they might discover, with similar honours and prerogatives to those
enjoyed by the High Admiral of Castile.
Second, that he and his heirs should be Viceroys and Governors-General
over all the said lands and continents, with the right of nominating
three candidates for the governing of each island or province, one of
whom should be appointed by the Crown.
Third, that he end his heirs should be entitled to one-tenth of all
precious stones, metals, spices, and other merchandises, however
acquired, within his Admiralty, the cost of acquisition being first
deducted.
Fourth, that he or his lieutenants in their districts, and the High
Admiral of Castile in his district, should be the sole judge in all
disputes arising out of traffic between Spain and the new countries.
Fifth, that he now, and he and his heirs at all times, should have the
right to contribute the eighth part of the expense of fitting out
expeditions, and receive the eighth part of the profits.
In addition to these articles there was another document drawn up on the
30th of April, which after an infinite preamble about the nature of the
Holy Trinity, of the Apostle Saint James, and of the Saints of God
generally in their relations to Princes, and with a splendid trailing of
gorgeous Spanish names and titles across the page, confers upon our
hitherto humble Christopher the right to call himself “Don,” and finally
raises him, in his own estimation at any rate, to a social level with his
proud Spanish friends. It is probably from this time that he adopted the
Spanish form of his name, Christoval Colon; but in this narrative I shall
retain the more universal form in which it has become familiar to the
English-speaking world.
He was now upon a Pisgah height, from which in imagination he could look
forth and see his Land of Promise. We also may climb up with him, and
stand beside him as he looks westward. We shall not see so clearly as he
sees, for we have not his inner light; and it is probable that even he
does not see the road at all, but only the goal, a single point of light
shining across a gulf of darkness. But from Pisgah there is a view
backward as well as forward, and, we may look back for a moment on this
last period of Christopher’s life in Spain, inwardly to him so full of
trouble and difficulty and disappointment, outwardly so brave and
glittering, musical with high-sounding names and the clash of arms; gay
with sun and shine and colour. The brilliant Court moving from camp to
camp with its gorgeous retinues and silken pavilions and uniforms and
dresses and armours; the excitement of war, the intrigues of the
antechamber--these are the bright fabric of the latter years; and against
it, as against a background, stand out the beautiful names of the Spanish
associates of Columbus at this time--Medina Celi, Alonso de Quintanilla,
Cabrero, Arana, DEA, Hernando de Talavera, Gonzales de Mendoza, Alonso de
Cardenas, Perez, Hernandez, Luis de Santangel, and Rodriguez de
Maldonado--names that now, in his hour of triumph, are like banners
streaming in the wind against a summer sky.