Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/490

464 464 PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY. This unwelcome delay, however, was softened to Columbus bj the distmguished marks which he daily received of the royal favor ; and various ordi- nances were passed, confirming and enlarging his great powers and privileges in the most ample man- ner, to a greater extent, indeed, than his modesty, or his prudence, would allow him to accept. ^^ The language in which these princely gratuities were conferred, rendered them doubly grateful to his noble heart, containing, as they did, the most em- phatic acknowledgments of his " many, good, loyal, distinguished, and continual services," and thus testifying the unabated confidence of his sovereigns in his integrity and prudence.^* Among the impediments to the immediate com- pletion of the arrangements for the admiral's de- parture on his third voyage, may be also noticed the hostility of Bishop Fonseca, who, at this period, had the control of the Indian department ; a man of an irritable, and, as it would seem, most unfor- giving temper, who, from some causes of disgust which he had conceived with Columbus previous to his second voyage, lost no opportunity of annoying 13 Such, for example, was the that of ' the Admiral,' eZJ./m?rawte, grant of an immense tract of land whatever other titles and honors in Hispaniola, with the title of may belong to them." That ti- count or duke, as the admiral might tie indicated his peculiar achieve- prefer. Mufioz, Hist, del Nuevo- ments, and it was an honest pride Mundo, lib. 6, sec. 17. which led him by this simple ex- 1** The instrument establishing pedient to perpetuate the remeia- the mai/orazgo, or ])erpetual entail brunce of them in his posterity, of Columbus's estates, contains an See the original docuinent, apud injunction, that " his heirs shall Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages never use any other signature than torn. ii. pp. 221 - 235.