Part 6

Very shortly after his arrival the papal bull was obtained, which fixed the famous line of demarcation, determining the right of the Spanish and Portuguese to discovered lands. This line was drawn from the north to the south pole, at a hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape de Verde islands; the discoveries to the westward were to belong to Spain, and those to the eastward to Portugal.

The seductive adulation of the court and the people did not, however, divert the thoughts of Columbus from the preparations for a second expedition. A stay of five months sufficed to make all ready for this purpose; but these preparations gave rise to a malignant feeling towards him on the part of Juan Rodriguez Fonseca, Bishop of Badajos, which eventually led to such disgraceful ill-usage of the admiral as will remain a stain upon the character of Spain while the name of Columbus exists in the memory of man.

On the 25th September 1493, Columbus took his departure from Cadiz, with a fleet of three large ships of heavy burthen, and fourteen caravels, and after a pleasant voyage reached the island of Dominica on the 3rd of November. The letter of Dr. Chanca, here translated, gives an interesting description of a considerable portion of the events of this voyage, but it is to be regretted that his account terminates so abruptly, and the “memorial” of Columbus to the sovereigns adds but few incidents of moment to the narrative. We should be straining the necessary limits of a mere introduction to these translated documents, were we to undertake to lead the reader through the various history of this eventful period of the life of Columbus. Such a task has been rendered perfectly unnecessary by the much admired work of Washington Irving. Suffice it that we state, that the principal geographical information supplied by this voyage consists in the discovery of the Caribbee Islands, Jamaica, an Archipelago (named by Columbus the Queen’s Gardens, supposed to be the Morant Keys), Evangelista, or the Isle of Pines; and the island of Mona.

He sailed with his fleet finally for Spain on the 28th of April, 1496, and after nearly two months’ struggle against the trade-winds (during which provisions became so reduced, that there was talk of killing, and even eating the Indian prisoners), reached the bay of Cadiz on the 11th of June. The emaciated state of the crew when they disembarked, presenting so mournful a contrast with the joyous and triumphant appearance which they were expected to make, produced a very discouraging impression upon the opinions of the public, and reflected a corresponding depression upon the spirits of Columbus himself. He was reassured, however, by the receipt of a gracious letter from the sovereigns inviting him to the court, which was the more gratifying to him that he had feared he had fallen into disgrace. He was received with distinguished favour, and had a verbal concession of his request to be furnished with eight ships for a third voyage. He was doomed, however, to have his patience severely tried by the delay which occurred in the performance of this promise, which was partly attributable to the engrossing character of the public events of the day, and partly to the machinations of his inveterate enemy, the bishop Fonseca.

It was not till the 30th of May 1498, that he set sail from San Lucar, with six of the eight vessels promised, the other two having been despatched to Hispaniola, with provisions, in the beginning of the year. When off Ferro he despatched three of his six vessels to the same island, with a store of fresh supplies for the colony, while with his remaining three he steered for the Cape Verde Islands, which he reached on the 27th of June. On the 5th of July he left Boavista, and proceeded southward and westward. In the course of this voyage the crews suffered intensely from the heat, having at one time reached the fifth degree of north latitude, but at length land was descried on the 31st of July,—a most providential occurrence, as but one cask of water remained in the ship. The island they came to formed an addition to his discoveries; and as the first land which appeared consisted of three mountains, united at their base, he christened the island, from the name of the Trinity, La Trinidad. It was in this voyage that he discovered terra firma,[18] and the islands of Margarita and Cubagua. His supposition that Paria had formed the original abode of our first parents, is curiously described in our translated letter; and to a careful observer the sagacity of his mode of reasoning is perceptible even in a speculation so fanciful as this. On reaching Hispaniola (to which he was drawn by his anxiety on account of the infant colony), he had the mortification to find that his authority had suffered considerable diminution, and that the colony was in a state of organized rebellion. He had scarcely, by his active and at the same time politic conduct, brought matters to a state of comparative tranquillity, when a new storm gathered round him from the quarter of the Spanish court. The hatred of his ancient enemies availed itself of the clamour raised against him by some of the rebels who had recently returned to Spain, and charges of tyranny, cruelty, and ambition were heaped unsparingly upon him. The king and queen, wearied with reiterated complaints, at length resolved to send out a judge, to inquire into his conduct,—injudiciously authorizing him to seize the governorship in the place of Columbus, should the accusations brought against him prove to be valid. The person chosen was Don Francisco de Bobadilla, whose character and qualifications for the office are best demonstrated by the fact, that, on the day after his arrival in Hispaniola, he seized upon the government before he had investigated the conduct of Columbus, who was then absent; he also took up his residence in his house, and took possession of all his property, public and private, even to his most secret papers. A summons to appear before the new governor was despatched to Columbus, who was at Fort Concepcion; and in the interval between the despatch of the summons and his arrival, his brother, Don Diego, was seized, thrown into irons, and confined on board of a caravel, without any reason being assigned for his imprisonment. No sooner did the admiral himself arrive, than he likewise was put in chains, and thrown into confinement. The habitual reverence due to his venerable person and exalted character, made each bystander shrink from the task of fixing the fetters on him, till one of his own domestics, described by Las Casas as “a graceless and shameless cook,” filled up the measure of ingratitude that he seemed doomed to experience, by riveting the irons, not merely with apathy, but with manifest alacrity. In this shackled condition he was conveyed, in the early part of October, from prison to the ship that was to convey him home; and when Andreas Martin, the master of the caravel, touched with respect for Columbus, and deeply moved at this unworthy treatment, proposed to take off his irons, he declined the offered benefit, with the following magnanimous reply: “Since the king has commanded that I should obey his governor, he shall find me as obedient in this as I have been to all his other orders; nothing but his command shall release me. If twelve years’ hardship and fatigue; if continual dangers and frequent famine; if the ocean first opened, and five times passed and repassed, to add a new world, abounding with wealth, to the Spanish monarchy; and if an infirm and premature old age, brought on by these services, deserve these chains as a reward, it is very fit I should wear them to Spain, and keep them by me as memorials to the end of my life.” This in truth he did; for he always kept them hung on the walls of his chamber, and desired that when he died they might be buried with him.

His arrival in Spain in this painful and degraded condition produced so general a sensation of indignation and astonishment, that a warm manifestation in his favour was the immediate consequence. A letter (here translated), written by him to Doña Juana de la Torre, a lady of the court, detailing the wrongs he had suffered, was read to queen Isabella, whose generous mind was filled with sympathy and indignation at the recital. The sovereigns hastened to order him to be set at liberty, and ordered two thousand ducats to be advanced, for the purpose of bringing him to court with all distinction and an honourable retinue. His reception at the Alhambra was gracious and flattering in the highest degree; the strongest indignation was expressed against Bobadilla, with an assurance that he should be immediately dismissed from his command, while ample restitution and reward were promised to Columbus, and he had every sanction for indulging the fondest hopes of returning in honour and triumph to St. Domingo. But here a grievous disappointment awaited him; his re-appointment was postponed from time to time with various plausible excuses. Though Bobadilla was dismissed, it was deemed desirable to refill his place for two years, by some prudent and talented officer, who should be able to put a stop to all remaining faction in the colony, and thus prepare the way for Columbus to enjoy the rights and dignities of his government both peacefully and beneficially to the crown. The newly-selected governor was Nicolas de Ovando, who, though described by Las Casas as a man of prudence, justice, and humanity, certainly betrayed a want both of generosity and justice in his subsequent transactions with Columbus. It is possible that the delay manifested by the sovereigns in redeeming their promise might have continued until the death of Columbus, had not a fresh stimulant to the cupidity of Ferdinand been suggested by a new project of discovering a strait, of the existence of which Columbus felt persuaded from his own observations, and which would connect the New World which he had discovered with the wealthy shores of the east. His enthusiasm on the subject was heightened by an emulous consideration of the recent achievements of Vasco da Gama and Cabral, the former of whom had, in 1497, found a maritime passage to India by the Cape, and the latter, in 1500, had discovered for Portugal the vast and opulent empire of Brazil. The prospect of a more direct and safe route to India than that discovered by da Gama, at length gained for Columbus the accomplishment of his wish for another armament; and, finally, on the 9th of May, 1502, he sailed from Cadiz on his fourth and last voyage of discovery.

It is painful to contrast the splendour of the fleet with which Ovando left Spain to assume the government of Hispaniola, with the slender and inexpensive armament granted to Columbus for the purpose of exploring an unknown strait into an unknown ocean, the traversing of whose unmeasured breadth would complete the circumnavigation of the globe. Ovando’s fleet consisted of thirty sail, five of them from ninety to one hundred and fifty tons burden, twenty-four caravels of from thirty to ninety tons, and one bark of twenty-five tons; and the number of souls amounted to about two thousand five hundred. The heroic and injured man, to whose unparalleled combination of noble qualities, the very dignity which called for all this state was indebted for its existence, had now in the decline of his years and strength, and stripped both of honour and emolument, to venture forth with four caravels,—the largest of seventy, and the smallest of fifty tons burthen—accompanied by one hundred and fifty men, on one of the most toilsome and perilous enterprises of which the mind can form a conception.

On the 20th of May he reached the Grand Canary, and starting from thence on the 25th, took his departure for the west. Favoured by the trade winds, he made’a gentle and easy passage, and reached one of the Caribbee Islands, called by the natives Matinino (Martinique), on the 15th of June. After staying three days at this island, he steered northwards, and touched at Dominica, and from thence directed his course, contrary to his own original intention and the commands of the sovereigns, to St. Domingo. His reason was that his principal vessel sailed so ill as to delay the progress of the fleet, which he feared might be an obstacle to the safety and success of the enterprise, and he held this as a sufficient motive for infringing the orders he had received. On his arrival at San Domingo, he found the ships which had brought out Ovando ready to put to sea on their return to Spain. He immediately sent to the governor to explain that his intention in calling at the island was to procure a vessel in exchange for one of his caravels, which was very defective; and further begged permission for his squadron to take shelter in the harbour, from a hurricane, which, from his acquaintance with the prognostics of the weather, he had foreseen was rapidly approaching. This request was ungraciously refused; upon which Columbus, though denied shelter for himself, endeavoured to avert the danger of the fleet, which was about to sail, and sent back immediately to the governor to entreat that he would not allow it to put to sea for some days. His predictions and requests were treated with equal contempt, and Columbus had not only to suffer these insulting refusals and the risk of life for himself and squadron, but the loud murmurings of his own crew that they had sailed with a commander whose position exposed them to such treatment. All he could do was to draw his ships up as close as possible to the shore, and seek the securest anchorage that chance might present him with. Meanwhile the weather appeared fair and tranquil, and the fleet of Bobadilla put boldly out to sea. The predicted storm came on the next night with terrific fury, and all the ships belonging to the governor’s fleet, with the exception of one, were either lost, or put back to San Domingo in a shattered condition. The only vessel that escaped was the one which had been freighted with some four thousand gold pieces, rescued from the pillage of Columbus’s fortune. Bobadilla, Roldan, and a number of the most inveterate enemies of the admiral, perished in this tremendous hurricane, while his own fleet, though separated and considerably damaged by the storm, all arrived safe at last at Port Hermoso, on the south of San Domingo. He repaired his vessels at Port Hermoso, but had scarcely left the harbour before another storm drove him into Port Brazil, more to the westward. On the 14th of July he left this port, steering for terra firma, and on the 30th discovered the small island of Guanaga or Bonacca, a few leagues east of the bay of Honduras. He continued an eastern course, and discovered the cape now known as Cape Honduras. While moving along this coast, he experienced one of those frightful tempests to which the tropics are liable, and of which he gives so impressive a description in the letter we have translated. At length, after forty days’ struggle to make as much as seventy leagues from the cape of Honduras, he reached a cape, by doubling which he found a direct southward course open, offering at the same time an unobstructed navigation and a favourable wind. To commemorate this sudden relief from toil and danger, Columbus named this point Cape _Gracias a Dios_, or “Thanks to God.” A melancholy occurrence took place on the 16th of September, while they were anchored off this coast. The boats had been sent up a large river to procure supplies of wood and water, when, on returning, the encounter of the sea with the rapid current of the river caused so violent and sudden a commotion, that one of the boats was swallowed up, and all on board perished. On the 25th of September he reached Cariay, or Cariari, where he stayed till the 5th of October. The next point was the Bay of Carumbaru, which was the first place on that coast where he met with specimens of pure gold. Leaving this bay on the 17th of October, he sailed along the coast of Veragua, and here he was informed by the Indians of the wealthy country of Ciguare, which he supposed to be some province belonging to the Grand Khan, and also of a river ten days’ journey beyond Ciguare, which he conceived to be the Ganges. On the 2nd of November he discovered Puerto Bello, in which harbour he was detained till the 9th by stormy weather; when, continuing his course eastward, he reached, near the end of the month, a small harbour, to which he gave the name of El Retrete, or the Cabinet. It was here that a continuance of stormy weather, in addition to the murmurs of his crew at-being compelled to prosecute an indefinite search, with worm-eaten ships, against opposing currents, determined Columbus on relinquishing his eastward voyage for the present, and to return in search of the gold mines of Veragua. But on altering his course to the westward, he had the mortification to find the wind for which he had long been wishing, come now, as if in direct opposition to his adopted course, and for nine days he was exposed to so terrible a storm that it was a marvel how his crazy vessels could outlive it. At length, after a month’s anxiety and suffering, they anchored, on the day of the Epiphany, at the mouth of a river called by the natives Yebra, but which Columbus named Belem, or Bethlehem. Here a settlement was formed, and here occurred the sad disasters and conflicts with the natives, which he describes in his letter from Jamaica, and in which the faithful and zealous Diego Mendez proved an eminently efficient assistant to his much loved master. The history of this unhappy voyage, the toils and perils of which were aggravated to Columbus by extreme bodily suffering, closes by his reaching Jamaica, where he would in all probability have perished, but for the devotedness and activity of Mendez. The highly interesting description of that brave man’s exploits on behalf of Columbus, has been quoted by Navarrete from his will, and is here translated. When at length, through the agency of Mendez, two ships arrived from Hispaniola to the assistance of the admiral, he was enabled, on the 28th of June, 1504, to leave his wrecked vessels behind him, and start with revived hopes for San Domingo, which he reached on the 13th of August. His sojourn there was not, as may be judged, calculated to afford him satisfaction or pleasure. The overstrained courtesy of the governor offered but a poor alleviation to the rush of rankling feelings which the past associations and present desolation of the place summoned up to his mind.

On the 12th of September he set sail for Spain, and the same tempestuous weather which had all along tended to make this his last voyage the most disastrous, did not forsake him now. The ship in which he came home sprung her mainmast in four places in one tempest, and in a subsequent storm the foremast was sprung, and finally, on the 7th of November, he arrived, in a vessel as shattered as his own broken and care-worn frame, in the welcome harbour of San Lucar.

The two years which intervened between this period and his death present a picture of black ingratitude on the part of the crown to this distinguished benefactor of the kingdom, which it is truly painful to contemplate. We behold an extraordinary man, the discoverer of a second hemisphere, reduced by his very success to so low a state of poverty that, in his prematurely infirm old age, he is compelled to subsist by borrowing, and to plead, in the apologetic language of a culprit, for the rights of which the very sovereign whom he has benefited has deprived him. The death of the benignant and high-minded Isabella, in 1505, gave a finishing blow to his hope of obtaining redress, and we find him thus writing subsequently to this period to his old and faithful friend Diego de Deza:—“It appears that his majesty does not think fit to fulfil that which he, with the queen, who is now in glory, promised me by word and seal. For me to contend for the contrary, would be to contend with the wind. I have done all that I could do: I leave the rest to God, whom I have ever found propitious to me in my necessities.” The selfish and cold-hearted Ferdinand beheld his illustrious and loyal servant sink, without relief, under bodily infirmity, and the palsying sickness of hope deferred; and at length, on the 20th of May 1506, the generous heart which had done so much without reward and suffered so much without upbraiding, found rest in a world where neither gratitude nor justice is either asked or withheld.

His body was in the first instance buried at Valladolid, in the parish church of Santa Maria de la Antigua, but was transferred, in 1513, to the Cartuja de las Cuevas, near Seville, where a monument was erected over his grave with the memorable inscription,—

A CASTILLA Y A LEON NUEVO MUNDO DIÓ COLON.

In the year 1536, both his body, and that of his son Diego, who had been likewise buried in the Cartuja, were transported to St. Domingo, and deposited in the cathedral of that city. From hence they were removed to Havannah in 1795, on the cession of Hispaniola to the French, and the ashes of the immortal discoverer now quietly repose in the cathedral church of that city.[19]

But injustice, unhappily, was not buried with Columbus in the tomb. It was but one twelvemonth after his death that an attempt was made, and only too successfully, to name the new world which he had discovered, after another, who was not only his inferior, but his pupil in the school of maritime enterprise. In an obscure corner of Lorraine, at the little cathedral town of St. Dié, a cluster of learned priests, who had there established a printing-press under the auspices of René II, Duke of Lorraine, suggested to give to the newly discovered continent the name of the Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, whose nautical career did not commence till after Columbus had returned from his second voyage to the western hemisphere. The first time that the name of Amerigo came into notice was in the year 1504, when Johann Ottmar published at Augsburg the _Mundus Novus_, a description of Vespucci’s third voyage, now extremely rare, embodied in a letter addressed by Vespucci himself to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de’ Medici. In this voyage, which occupied from May 1501 to September 1502, he was in the service of Portugal, and explored the coasts of South America as far as beyond the fifty-second degree. But it was not till May, 1507, when Columbus had been a twelvemonth dead, that the world was informed of four voyages professed to have been made by Vespucci, of which the one just mentioned was only the third, the two former having been made, as he states, in the service of Spain. As the first of these was asserted to have taken place between May 20th, 1497, and October, 1499 [say 1498], and, if correct, would involve the discovery by him not only of the north coasts of South America, but a large extent of the coast of North America also, and that in priority of the claims both of Cabot and Columbus as regards the discovery of the American continent, it has been a matter of keen interest to many to examine minutely the correctness of Vespucci’s claim to having made this voyage.