The intelligence of this event excited a sensation
in Spain, inferior only to that caused by the discovery of America. The great object which had so
long occupied the imagination of the nautical men
of Europe, and formed the purpose of Columbus's
last voyage, the discovery of a communication with
these far western waters, was accomplished. The
famous spice islands, from which the Portuguese
had drawn such countless sums of wealth, were
scattered over this sea ; and the Castilians, after a
journey of a {^w leagues, might launch their barks
on its quiet bosom, and reach, and perhaps claim,
the coveted possessions of their rivals, as falling
west of the papal line of demarkation. Such were
the dreams, and such the actual progress of discovery, at the close of Ferdinand's reign.
Excesses of the Spaniards. Our admiration of the dauntless heroism displayed by the early Spanish navigators, in their extraordinary career, is much qualified by a consideration of the cruelties with which it was tarnished: too great to be either palliated or passed over in silence by the historian. As long as Isabella lived, the Indians found an efficient friend and protector; but "her death," says the venerable Las Casas, "was the signal for their destruction."[1] Immediately on that event, the system of repartimientos, originally authorized, as we have seen, by Columbus, who seems to have had no doubt, from the first, of the
- ↑ Las Casas, Mémoire, Œuvres, ed. deLlorente, tom. i. p. 189.
bus." The third volume of Navarrete's laborious compilation, is devoted to the illustration of the minor Spanish voyagers, who followed up the bold track of discovery, between Columbus and Cortes, Coleccion de Viages.
