CHAPTER VIII. COLUMBUS. — PROSECUTION OF DISCOVERY. — HIS TREATMENT BY THE COURT. 1494—1503. Progress of Discovery. — Reaction of Public Feeling. — The Queen's Confidence in Columbus. — He discovers Terra Firma. — Isabella sends back the Indian Slaves. — Complaints against Columbus. — Superseded in the Government. — Vindication of the Sovereigns. — His fourth and last Voyage. The reader will turn with satisfaction from the chapter melancholy and mortifying details of superstition, '. to the generous efforts, which the Spanish govern- iiisc^yeiy ment was making to enlarge the limits of science and dominion in the west. " Amidst the storms and troubles of Italy, Spain was every day stretch- ing her wings over a wider sweep of empire, and extending the glory of her name to the far An- tipodes." Such is the swell of exultation with which the enthusiastic Italian, Martyr, notices the brilliant progress of discovery under his illustrious countryman Columbus.^ The Spanish sovereigns had never lost sight of the new domain, so unex- pectedly opened to them, as it were, from the 1 "Inter has Italiae procellas riam nomenque suum ad Antipodes magis indies ac magis alas proten- porriget." Peter Martyr, Opus dit Hispania, imperium auget, glo- Epist., epist. 146. VOL. II. 58
