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Rh his imputation of bastardy. He uttered, them, his accusations of secret amours against the father, in order to stigmatize the son. The official position of Father Spotorno obtained for his notice as much authority as it did notoriety. It was he that propagated the notion of the frailty of the Hero.

Precisely at that period, Martin Fernandez de Navarrete was continuing the "Collection of the Maritime Voyages of the Spaniards," commenced by the learned Don Bautista Muñoz, by order of Charles IV. A writer of a graceful style, but destitute of originality, — accomplished with a special kind of learning, but wanting in that reach of thought which belongs to elevated minds, — Navarrete, obtaining many offices, many honors, carried to idolatry his respect for the royal majesty. Indignant at the freedom of Bossi, and especially at that of his French translator, who briefly recalled the ingratitude of Ferdinand the Catholic towards Columbus, he undertook the task of exculpating the most ungrateful, by calumniating the most generous of men. Vengeance armed his pen. Yet, in the whole course of his researches, Navarrete found nothing that could cast the least suspicion on the relations of Columbus with Beatrix Enriquez. All his annotations showed Fernando as the legitimate son of the Admiral of the Ocean. The calumny of Spotorno came to give him a new arm.

Starting from that moment, we meet with quite a display of accusations. Columbus left Portugal secretly, in order to defraud his creditors. If he showed great patience in the delays made by the Court of Spain in regard to the project of his discoveries, this patience, this force of soul that was attributed to his Catholic faith, is explained by a secret cause: Columbus loved to distraction a certain beauty of Cordova, whom he had made a mother. Consequently, with him religious appearances were only skilfulness of conduct; he conformed exteriorly to the habits of the court, which was then very rigid in regard to morals. His unscrupulousness and hypocrisy being once admitted,