reaching the East Indies, not by the route round Africa, which all other navigators were pursuing, but by a shorter one across the Atlantic. Various accounts are given of the manner in which the proposal was received. John himself was a wise and magnanimous prince, and he appears to have been much impressed by the earnestness of the noble-looking foreigner who addressed him. Naturally cautious, however, of patronising an enterprise which might turn out to be a mere chimera, he referred the matter to some of his counselors, who dissuaded him from engaging in it. Still, such was the effect of Columbus' representations, that John did not at once dismiss the project. On the contrary, by a piece of meanness not agreeing with his general character, he followed the advice of some of his counselors, and having, on false pretenses, procured from Columbus a detailed plan of his contemplated voyage, with maps and charts to correspond, he secretly despatched a vessel to ascertain the practicability of the intended route. The vessel actually sailed a considerable way beyond the Cape Verd islands; but a storm arising, the crew became afraid to venture farther, and put back, reporting that Columbus' notion was mad and irrational.
Indignant at this unjust treatment, Columbus, whose wife had for some time been dead, secretly left Lisbon, taking with him his young son Diego. The reason for his leaving the city secretly is said by some to have been the fear of being prevented by the government; by others, the fear of being apprehended for debts which he was unable to pay. Proceeding to his native city of Genoa, he renewed an offer which he had previously made by letter, of conducting the enterprise under the patronage of the Genoese government—an offer which was contemptuously refused, Genoa being already in the decline of her fortunes, and too broken-spirited to engage in any more bold enterprises. It is said that Columbus' next offer was made to the Venetian government; which, however, is improbable. The usual account, also, of his sending his brother Bartholomew at this time to England to propose the scheme to Henry VII, is incorrect: it was not till the year 1488, when the negotiations with Spain had begun, that Bartholomew proceeded to England on this errand.
Columbus' Negotiations in Spain. Spain was the country to which
Columbus looked with the greatest hope after the rejection of his scheme
by Portugal. No country at that time occupied the attention of Europe
so much as Spain. By the marriage of Ferdinand II of Arragon, with Isabella
of Castile, the whole of the peninsula, except Portugal, had been consolidated
into one powerful kingdom. Ruling separately over their distinct
territories—the wise, cold, and wary Ferdinand over his subjects of
Arragon, and the generous and high-souled Isabella over hers of Castile—the
two made it their common endeavor to promote the glory of Spain, and
raise its reputation as one of the first powers of Christendom. They were
at this time engaged in a war with Granada, the last of the Moorish kingdoms
in Spain; and all their energies were occupied in the accomplishment
of what was then regarded a noble and chivalrous enterprise—the entire
expulsion of the Moors from the peninsula. Spain, accordingly, was then
the land of daring deeds, and hither our poor Italian resolved to bend his
steps, with the scheme of a new world.
In Andalusia, one of the most southern of the Spanish provinces, and next to Granada, is an insignificant little seaport, of the name of Palos de
