Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/499

471 REVIEW OF THEIR ADMINISTRATION. 471 The government, however, realized less from ciiapteb XXVI. these expensive enterprises than individuals, many of whom, enriched bj their official stations, or by adventure accidentally falling in with some hoard of treasure among the savages, returned home to excite the envy and cupidity of their countrymen. ^°' But the spirit of adventure was too high among the Castil- ians to require such incentive, especially when ex- cluded from its usual field in Africa and Europe. A striking proof of the facility, with which the romantic cavaliers of that day could be directed to this new career of danger on the ocean, was given at the time of the last-meditated expedition into Italy under the Great Captain. A squadron of fifteen vessels, bound for the New World, was then riding in the Guadalquivir. Its complement was limited to one thousand two hundred men ; but, on Ferdinand's countermanding Gonsalvo's enterprise, more than three thousand volunteers, many of them of noble family, equipped with unusual mag- nificence for the Italian service, hastened to Seville, and pressed to be admitted into the Indian arma- da.^**^ Seville itself was in a manner depopulated by the general fever of emigration, so that it ac- tually seemed, says a contemporary, to be tenanted )nly by women. ^^ 107 Bernard in de Santa Clara, same author, that gold was sc treasurer of Hispaniola, amassed, abundant, as to be drag-ged up in during a few years' residence there, nets from the beds of the rivers ! 96,000 ounces of gold. This same Lib. 10, cap. 14. nouveau riche, used to serve gold ^^^ Ante, Part II., Chapter 24. Hust, says Herrera, instead of salt, — Herrera, Indias Occidentales, at his entertainments. (Indias Oc- dec. 1, lib. 10, cap. 6, 7. cidentales, dec. 1, lib. 7, cap. 3.) 109 "Per esser Sevilla nel loco Many believed, according to the che i, vi vanno tanti di lore alle