IN SEARCH OF A PATRON.
[Æt. 45–46; 1482–84]
We have two accounts of the interview between Columbus and the
King--one written by Fernando Columbus, and the other by Juan de
Barros, an eminent geographer. Fernando says that the King listened
with great delight to the project of Columbus, and only refrained from
instantly giving him the command of an expedition because he did not
feel ready to consent to Columbus’s conditions. De Barros says that
King John finally professed that he approved of Columbus’s views merely
to get rid of that persistent mariner.
However this may be, the King referred the whole matter to a committee,
with power to send for maps and things. The committee consisted of
two geographers--who of course hated Columbus with true scientific
hatred--and the King’s confessor, the Bishop of Ceuta. It did not take
very long for the committee to decide that Columbus was a preposterous
person, and that his project was impracticable. The King then referred
the matter to his council, where it was hotly debated. The Bishop of
Ceuta took the broad, general ground that exploration was an idle and
frivolous occupation; that no men of sense wanted any new countries;
and that if the King must have amusement, the best thing he could do
would be to make war upon the Moors.
Don Pedro de Meneses replied with much vigor, hurling back the
Bishop’s accusations against exploration, and nailing his reverence’s
misstatements as boldly as if the two were rival Congressmen. As for
himself, Don Pedro said, he liked new continents, and believed that
Portugal could not have too many of them. He considered Columbus a
great man, and felt that it would be a precious privilege for other
people to aid in the proposed transatlantic scheme.
Nevertheless, the council decided against it, much, we are told, to the
King’s disappointment.
The Bishop of Ceuta, in spite of his remarks at the meeting of the
committee, evidently thought there might be something in Columbus’s
plan after all. He therefore proposed to the King that Columbus should
be induced to furnish written proposals and specifications for the
discovery of transatlantic countries, and that with the help of the
information thus furnished the King should secretly send a vessel to
test the practicability of the scheme. This was done, but the vessel
returned after a few days, having discovered nothing but water.
[Æt. 46–48; 1484]
As soon as Columbus heard of this trick he became excessively angry,
and resolved that King John should never have a square foot of new
territory, nor a solitary heathen soul to convert, if he could help it.
Accordingly, he broke off his acquaintance with the King, and proposed
to leave Lisbon, in the mean time sending his brother Bartholomew to
England to ask if the English King would like to order a supply of new
islands or a transatlantic continent. His wife had already succumbed
to her husband’s unremitting conversation concerning explorations,
and died, doubtless with much resignation. Madame Perestrello, Pedro
Correo, and Mrs. Columbus were probably only a few of the many unhappy
Portuguese who suffered from the fatal conversational powers of
Columbus, and Portugal may have become rather an unsafe place for him.
This would account for the stealthy way in which he left that kingdom,
and is at least as probable as the more common theory that he ran away
to escape his creditors.
It was in the year 1484 that Columbus, accompanied by his son Diego,
shook the dust of Portugal from his feet and climbed over the
back-fence into Spain, in the dead of night, instead of openly taking
the regular mail-coach. The King of England had refused to listen
to Bartholomew’s proposals, and King John had been guilty of conduct
unbecoming a monarch and a gentleman. This may have given Columbus a
prejudice against kings, for he made his next applications to the Dukes
of Medina Sidonia and Medina Celi--two noblemen residing in the south
of Spain.
[Æt. 48; 1484–87]
Medina Sidonia listened to Columbus with much interest, and evidently
regarded him as an entertaining kind of lunatic; but after a time he
became seriously alarmed at the Italian’s inexhaustible capacity for
talk, and courteously got rid of him before sustaining any permanent
injury. The Duke of Medina Celi was a braver man, and not only invited
Columbus to come and stay at his house, but actually spoke of lending
him ships and money. He changed his mind, however, and told Columbus
that he really could not take the liberty of fitting out an expedition
which ought to be fitted out by a king. Columbus then remarked that
he would step over to France and speak to the French King about it;
whereupon the Duke hastily wrote to Queen Isabella, of Castile and
Aragon, mentioning that he had a mariner of great merit in his house,
whom she really ought to see. The Queen graciously wrote, requesting
the Duke to forward his ancient mariner to the royal palace at Cordova,
which he accordingly did, furnishing Columbus at the same time with a
letter of introduction to Her Majesty.
Spain was then merely a geographical expression. Ferdinand, King of
Aragon, had recently married Isabella, Queen of Castile, and their
joint property was called the Kingdom of Castile and Aragon; for,
inasmuch as the Moors still ruled over the southern part of the
peninsula, it would have been indelicate for Ferdinand and his queen to
pretend that they were the monarchs of all Spain.
When Columbus reached Cordova he found that their majesties were on the
point of marching against the Moors, and had no time to listen to any
plans of exploration. Before starting, however, the Queen deposited
Columbus with Alonzo de Quintanilla, the treasurer of Castile, and,
we may presume, took a receipt for him. Quintanilla, an affable old
gentleman, was much pleased with Columbus, and soon became a warm
advocate of his theories. He introduced the navigator to several
influential friends, and Columbus passed the summer and winter very
pleasantly.
At Cordova he also met a young person named Beatrix Enriquez, to whom
he became much attached, and who was afterward the mother of his son
Fernando. She probably had her good qualities; but as Columbus was
so much preoccupied with his transatlantic projects he forgot to
marry her, and hence she is scarcely the sort of young person to be
introduced into a virtuous biography.
[Æt. 48–51; 1484–87]
During the same winter the King and Queen held their court at
Salamanca, after having made a very brilliant foray into the Moorish
territory, and having also suppressed a rebellion in their own
dominions. Columbus went to Salamanca, where he made the acquaintance
of Pedro Gonsalvez de Mendoza, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, who
was decidedly the most influential man in the kingdom. When Columbus
first mentioned his project, the Cardinal told him the Scriptures
asserted that the earth was flat, and that it would be impious for
him to prove it was round; but Columbus soon convinced him that the
Church would be greatly benefited by the discovery of gold-mines all
ready to be worked, and of heathen clamoring to be converted, and thus
successfully reconciled science and religion. The Cardinal heartily
entered into his scheme, and soon obtained for him an audience with the
King.
Columbus says that on this occasion he spoke with an eloquence and
zeal that he had never before displayed. The King listened with great
fortitude, and when Columbus temporarily paused in his oration had
still strength enough left to dismiss him with a promise to refer
the matter to a scientific council. In pursuance of this promise he
directed Fernando de Talavera, the Queen’s confessor, to summon the
most learned men of the kingdom to examine Columbus thoroughly and
decide upon the feasibility of his plan. As for the Queen, she does not
appear to have been present at the audience given to Columbus, either
because her royal husband considered the female mind incapable of
wrestling with geography, or because he did not think her strong enough
to endure Columbus’s conversation.
The scientific Congress met at Salamanca without any unnecessary delay,
and as few people except priests had any learning whatever at that
period, the Congress consisted chiefly of different kinds of priests.
They courteously gave Columbus his innings, and listened heroically
to his interminable speech, after which they proceeded to demonstrate
to him that he was little better than a combined heretic and madman.
They quoted the Bible and the opinions of the Fathers of the church in
support of the theory that the earth was flat instead of round.
When Columbus in his turn proved that the Bible and the Fathers must
be understood in a figurative sense, the priests then took the ground
that if the world was round, Columbus could not carry enough provisions
with him to enable him to sail around it, and that he could not sail
back from his alleged western continent unless his vessels could sail
up-hill.
Gradually the more sensible members of the congress came to the
conclusion that it would be better to agree to everything Columbus
might propose, rather than listen day after day to his appalling
eloquence. Still, the majority were men of ascetic lives and great
physical endurance, and they showed no disposition to yield to argument
or exhaustion. The sessions of the Congress were thus prolonged from
day to day, and Columbus was kept in a painful state of suspense.
Little did he imagine that in the land which he was destined to
discover, another Congress would meet, not quite four hundred years
later, and would even surpass the Congress of Salamanca in the
tediousness and uselessness of its debates.