Throughout his residence in Barcelona Columbus continued to receive the
most honorable distinction from the Spanish sovereigns. When Ferdinand
rode abroad the admiral rode by his side. Isabella, the true promoter of
his expedition, treated him with the most gracious consideration. The
courtiers, emulating their sovereigns, gave frequent entertainments in his
honor, treating him with the punctilious deference usually shown only to a
noble of the highest rank. It cannot be said, however, that envy at the
high distinction shown this lately obscure and penniless adventurer was
quite concealed, and at one of these entertainments is said to have taken
place the famous episode of the egg.
A courtier of shallow wit, with the purpose of throwing discredit on the
achievement of Columbus, intimated that it was not so great an exploit
after all; all that was necessary was to sail west a certain number of
days; the lands lay there waiting to be discovered. Were there not other
men in Spain, he asked, capable of this?
The response of Columbus was to take an egg and ask those present to make
it stand upright on its end. After they had tried and failed he struck the
egg on the table, cracking the shell and giving it a base on which to
stand.
"But anybody could do that!" cried the critic.
"Yes; and anybody can become a discoverer when once he has been shown the
way," retorted Columbus. "It is easy to follow in a known track."
By this time all Europe had heard of the brilliant discovery of the
Genoese mariner, and everywhere admiration at his achievement and interest
in its results were manifested. Europe had never been so excited by any
single event. The world was found to be larger than had been dreamed of,
and it was evident that hundreds of new things remained to be known. Word
came to Barcelona that King John of Portugal was equipping a large
armament to obtain a share of the new realms in the west, and all haste
was made to anticipate this dangerous rival by sending Columbus again to
the New World.
On the 25th of September, 1493, he set sail with a gallant armament, which
quite threw into the shade his three humble caravels of the year before.
It consisted of seventeen vessels, some of them of large size for that
day, and fifteen hundred souls, including several persons of rank, and
members of the royal household. Many of those that had taken part in the
Moorish war, stimulated by the love of adventure, were to win fame in the
coming years in the conquest of the alluring realms of the West, and the
earliest of these sailed now under the banner of the Great Admiral.
The story of Columbus is too familiar to readers for more to be said of it
here. It was one in which the boasted honor of the Spanish court was
replaced by injustice and lack of good faith. Envy and malice surrounded
the discoverer, and in 1500 he was sent home in chains by an infamous
governor. The king, roused by a strong display of public indignation,
disavowed the base act of his agent, and received Columbus again with a
show of favor, but failed to reinstate him in the office of which he had
been unjustly deprived. The discoverer of America died at Valladolid in
1506, giving directions that the fetters which he had once worn, and which
he had kept as evidence of Spanish ingratitude, should be buried with him.