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COL resided at Porta Santo, where his wife had a small property, and voyagers from the Guinea coast were in the habit of touching. Sometimes he took part in expeditions to the coast of Guinea. His greatest adventure of those years, however (if at least we are to credit one plausible view of it), was a voyage to the Northern Ocean in the February of 1477.

The earliest trace of Columbus' great design belongs to the year 1474, a year otherwise memorable for the introduction of printing into England. In that year, we find him corresponding with Paolo Toscanelli of Florence, on the feasibility of a western passage, not to America, but to Asia. The learned Toscanelli approved of the design, and sent Columbus a chart of his own construction, in which the eastern coast of Asia was represented as moderately distant from the western coasts of Africa and Europe, and in the intervening ocean stood Marco Polo's Cipango (Japan), and the imaginary island of Antilla, still recognizable in the Antilles. This map, or some redaction of it, Columbus had with him on his first voyage to America. For his knowledge of the general literature of the subject Columbus was chiefly indebted to the Imago Mundi, a cosmographical compilation of Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly, bishop of Cambray, written in 1410, and printed probably about 1480. Here he found, collected, the dim guesses of ancients and moderns at the true figure of the earth, and the possibility of sailing from west to east. This was the book that furnished him with weapons for his frequent controversies subsequently with the learned sceptics of Spain and Portugal. The copy of Pierre d'Ailly's work which belonged to Columbus, and which is studded with MS. notes in his handwriting, still lies in the library of the cathedral of Seville, a priceless item of the Bibliotheca Columbina, bequeathed by the great navigator's son, Fernando, to the library of the cathedral. But it was not only from fanciful charts and the theorizings of scholars, old and new, that Columbus derived his faith in the existence of easily accessible regions to the west. Eagerly he inquired from practical men respecting vestiges of a world beyond the western wave. By two happy mistakes he diminished the circumference of the earth, and gave a vast imaginary extension to Asia. It grew to be for his mind no mere matter of speculation, but an indubitable fact, that the eastern shore of Asia, and the magnificent civilization described by Marco Polo could be attained by a moderate voyage westward from Europe; and the belief that he had reached Asia, not that he had discovered a new continent, remained with him to his dying day. His highest religious aspirations, and his intensest worldly desires gradually grouped themselves round this central faith. He saw immense authority and illimitable wealth, the reward of his achieved discovery; but all earthly gains were subordinated to the triumphs of the Cross among new and vast populations. The certain wealth to be acquired by himself should be devoted—such was one of his dreams a few years further on—to another crusade, and to the recovery of the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels, with whom he had already battled in his early and obscure years of Mediterranean voyaging.

In 1481 John II. ascended the throne of Portugal. It was shortly after the accession of this monarch that Columbus—after having, it is said, vainly applied to Genoa—propounded to him the daring scheme of reaching India by the western ocean. Preoccupied probably by the idea of the south-eastern route, John at first discouraged the new enterprise, but eventually referred it to a junto composed of his two physicians and his confessor, the bishop of Ceuta. By them the notion was condemned as chimerical, a verdict which was ratified by a great council of civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries and learned men, whom the hesitating king constituted a court of appeal. The king still hesitated, when an ignoble compromise was offered to him and accepted. Under pretence of a wish thoroughly to examine them, the detailed plans of Columbus were procured from him. Unknown to him, a caravel was despatched westwards on a voyage of discovery. After a few days, stormy weather frightened the conductors of the expedition back to Lisbon, where they ridiculed the aim of Columbus. Indignant at this treachery, Columbus declined any further negotiations with John II., and shook the dust of Portugal from off his feet. He left Portugal, it is believed, not only poor, but in debt. His wife was dead, and he took with him a little motherless Diego, who lived to be second admiral of the Indies. It is supposed that he now applied a second time to Genoa to aid him in his enterprise, and that during his visit to his native city, he assisted, out of his own scanty means, his aged father, whom he had already helped while struggling for a subsistence as a chartographer in Portugal. A deep affectionateness of disposition is one of the most noted of Columbus' characteristics.

It is in 1485, and in the south of Spain, that we next see Columbus distinctly. Great dukes of Medina-Sidonia and Medina-Celi, with estates and ports upon the sea-bord, lent an attentive ear to his glowing projects; but his only direct gain from them was a recomendation to Queen Isabella of Spain. The astute Ferdinand and the noble-minded Isabella were then occupied with their campaigns against the Moors. At intervals they entertained the schemes of Columbus so far as to have him a frequent visitor of their camp, and to relegate his enterprise to the discussion of eminent men. From Cordova (where he became acquainted with the mother of his illegitimate and second son, his future biographer, Fernando) Columbus followed the court to Salamanca in 1486, by order of King Ferdinand, and there he held a solemn conference with a junto, chiefly composed of learned and scientific ecclesiastics. At the epoch of this discussion, Copernicus was a boy of thirteen, and Columbus was met with quotations from the bible and the fathers against the rotundity of the earth. The conference was adjourned without definitive result. From 1487 to 1490, Columbus hung about the Spanish court and camp, now stoutly fighting against the Moors, and summoned to consultations with the Spanish sovereigns, sometimes full of hope, sometimes so discouraged as to think of renewing negotiations with John of Portugal, or of repairing to London and Henry VII. At last, in the summer of 1490, he presses with such earnestness for a distinct reply to his application, that the old conference is ordered to give him one. Its members report against him; and the curtain drops for a time on Columbus, the rejected and disappointed, poor and isolated, beginning once more his weary pilgrimage.

When the curtain rises again it is to discover Columbus approaching the gate of the convent of Santa Maria de Rabida, near the haven of Palos in Andalusia, for the purpose of procuring a crust of bread and a draught of water for the little boy by whom he is accompanied. The prior of the convent, sauntering by, observed that he was a foreigner, and, entering into conversation with him, learned who he was. This interview with the prior of the convent of Rabida, Juan Perez de Marchena, was the turning-point in the career of Columbus. The prior was a man of sense, and he had been the queen's confessor. He talked with Columbus, grew interested in his schemes, and introduced him and them to the notables of the neighbourhood, among others, to Martin Alonzo Pinzon, the head of a flourishing family of navigators in the then thriving and adventurous port of Palos. Pinzon was convinced, and offered his co-operation, personal and pecuniary. The prior, presuming on his old connection, wrote fervently to the queen for decisive encouragement to Columbus, who spoke of repairing with his projects to the court of France, whither, it is said, Charles VII. had invited him. Isabella, perhaps alarmed lest another country should profit by Columbus' discoveries, sent for both Columbus and the prior, and with womanly thoughtfulness transmitted a considerable sum of money wherewith the impoverished adventurer might equip himself for appearance at court. He arrived in time to witness the surrender of Granada, and in the glories of the triumph did not grudge a little delay. At last he was heard once more; but, at the very threshold of the negotiations, the lofty and unbending pride of Columbus nearly proved suicidal. He insisted on high titles and privileges; he was to be admiral and viceroy of all the countries discovered; and one-tenth of all gains derived from commerce or from conquest were to be his. The courtiers laughed; the official person who more directly treated with him was the queen's confessor, the new archbishop of Granada, and he professed himself shocked at the claims of the humble projector. Even Queen Isabella wavered. It shows the genuine confidence which Columbus had in himself and in his mission, that, at this apparent crisis of his fate, he refused to give way. At the commencement of February, 1492, he mounted his mule and set forth for Cordova on his road to France. Once again Queen Isabella was strenuously appealed to by an official believer in Columbus, and once again she summoned him to her presence. When he reached the court again, he found his demands conceded. On a former occasion,