Page:The life of Christopher Columbus.djvu/52

28 Navarrete pursues with advantage his accusations, shows the insatiable avidity of Columbus, and seems to admit some acts of disloyalty and malversation. In wresting and mutilating the narration of Oviedo, that old enemy of Columbus, he supposes some unspecified crimes, — some concealed misdemeanors, — for which it was sought to punish him without public chastisement. Afterwards come the charges of violence and of cruelty. The courtier has calumniated Columbus beyond measure, in order the better to praise the clemency of Ferdinand, who, he pretends, was gracious to him, and treated him with kindness.

Navarrete afterwards seeks to judge of Columbus from the point of view of the philosophy of history. He finds that "his faults were the peculiar consequences of human frailty, and probably of the education he received, of the career he embraced, and of the country in which he was born, — a country in which traffic and business formed the principal branch of riches, private as well as public." Navarrete does not think that, in speaking thus, he diminishes the glory of Columbus as "the author of the discovery of the New World," and supports his views with some examples: "Alexander dominated by wrath, and afterwards by superstition; Alcibiades having many admirable qualities and infamous vices; Cæsar uniting inordinate ambition with eminent qualities," etc. It is thus that the disciple of Jesus Christ is appreciated! People think they do him much honor by comparing him to the great men of Paganism!

Before the impassioned lucubrations of Navarrete were entirely printed, Washington Irving, who was in Spain, became acquainted with them. Although a Protestant, and, therefore, a greater stranger than Spotorno and Navarrete to the sentiments that animated Columbus, he, nevertheless, conceived a higher and a juster idea of the great man than they did. His rectitude of mind, aided by his bibliographical researches, showed him the short-sightedness and the partiality of these two collectors of historic