Page:The life of Christopher Columbus.djvu/67

the first instance), declared that in no part of the process did he find the proof that Fernando was illegitimate.^[1] On the genealogical tree of the Colombos of Cucarro, which was shown us in Rome by their last descendant, the name of Fernando is by the side of that of Diego, under the same title; and never was there, in his family, the least doubt of the legitimacy of Don Fernando. Monseigneur Luigi Colombo recognizes very expressly the marriage of Columbus with the noble mother of Don Fernando.^[2] Finally, these assurances received their last irrefragable guarantee from the very hand of Columbus himself. In a letter to persons whose duty he considered it was to support his reclamations at the Court of Spain, he reminds them that for the service of the Crown he quitted all, — wife and children,^[3] — and never enjoyed the sweetness of living with his family.

The original of this letter, wholly written by the hand of the Admiral, exists to this day. A copy of it forms part of the Diplomatic Collection printed in 1825; and, strange to tell, the autographic authenticity of this document, which so peremptorily refutes Navarrete, has been admitted by Navarrete himself in his official capacity! He could not have been ignorant of it. But, blinded by prejudice, he looked at it without reading it, without comprehending it; he limited himself to recognizing the writing, not seeing what overwhelming testimony this august autograph would bring against his calumnies.^[4] (See Addendum.)

1. Pleytos de los descedientes de Colon.
2. Patria e biografia del Grande Ammiraglio, pp. 208, 299.
3. Christopher Columbus. "Y deje mucher y fijos que jamas vi por ello." — Col. Diplomat., num. cxxxvii.
4. It was not alone the royal historiographer Don Bautista Muñoz, and the archivist General Don Thomas Gonzales, who have numbered and classified under No. cxxxvii. this precious autograph. Don Martin Navarrete has added to it a note stating that this piece was wholly written by the hand of the Admiral, En papel dc mano del Almirante D. Cristobal Colon.