well as for himself, a name that would never be forgotten. If ever there was a moment in the life of Columbus when his joy exceeded that which he felt at his first view of the Bahama Islands, it must have been now. Well could he now forget the seven years of toil and discouragement he had suffered before the voyage began.

As he approached the throne the sovereigns rose and received him as one of their own class. Columbus bore his new honors with befitting modesty. He told his royal hosts the simple story of his discoveries, and as he concluded they both fell on their knees and thanked God for the new lands added to their dominions, and for the opportunity of carrying the Gospel to the heathen that might inhabit them.

Line of demarcation.

The sovereigns now decided to settle the matter between Spain and Portugal concerning the right to the new lands by an appeal to Pope Alexander VI. The Pope thereupon issued his famous bull establishing the "Line of Demarcation." All discoveries east of this line, an imaginary one drawn from pole to pole, one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape de Verde Islands, changed the following year to three hundred and seventy leagues, were to belong to Portugal and all west of it to Spain. It will be seen that this gives all the New World, except the eastern portion of Brazil, to Spain.

age of Columbus.

The sovereigns now busied themselves in fitting Columbus out for a second voyage across the Atlantic. No trouble this time to secure a crew. Young men of aristocratic birth hastened to join the expedition; Columbus's brother Bartholomew and Ponce de Leon were among the voyagers. With a fleet of seventeen ships of variSecond voyous sizes the admiral set out from Cadiz on September 25, 1493, and after a prosperous voyage landed on a small mountainous island which he named Dominica. He then hastened to the island of La Navidad, where he had left the colony. Of the forty left on the island every man had perished, and the white bones scattered about told the sad story. The colony -the first colony planted by white men on the soil of the Western World-had been destroyed by the natives, and this marked the beginning of that mortal strife between the white race and the red race, that was to continue for centuries, and to result at last in the complete dominion of the former and the universal conquest of the latter. After founding a colony in San Domingo, and spending three 1 May 2, 1493.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 21

Third

voyage.

years in Porto Rico, Jamaica, and other islands, Columbus returned to Spain in 1496, and two years later he made a third voyage on which he discovered Trinidad and the mainland of South America at the mouth of the Orinoco River, which, still believing himself in Asiatic waters, he took to be one of the great rivers mentioned in the Bible as flowing from the Garden of Eden. The fortunes of the great navigator now took a downward turn. He had tasted of the waters of adversity; he had drunk at the purest fountain of success and popularity, and now in the closing years of his life he must again drink of the bitterest cup of all-that born of jealousy, envy, and malicious hatred. He had powerful enemies at the Spanish court, and they were unwearied in their efforts to poison the minds of the sovereigns against him. His critics had begun their work even before his return from the second voyage. They belittled the value of his discoveries, represented him as a tyrant and an adventurer, and incapable of governing the newly planted colonies, never forgetting to speak of him as a foreigner and not a true Spaniard. At length they were successful, and a pusillanimous soul named Bobadilla was sent to the West Indies with power to supersede Columbus if he found the charges against him to be true. He exceeded his instruc

tions, condemned Columbus without a hearing, and sent him bound in fetters to Spain. On landing Columbus wrote a touching letter to the queen, reciting his wrongs. She commanded that he be unbound, and that he come into her presence. In tears he fell prostrate before her and told the story of his hardships. She was deeply moved, and Columbus was reinstated in the royal favor; but he was not restored to the governorship of his colony. Columbus now made a fourth and final voyage to the New World and discovered the coast of Honduras. He returned in 1504 and found to his sorrow that his enemies were again in the ascendency. His benefactress, Queen Isabella, was dying. A few weeks later she breathed her last, and the hopes of Columbus were shattered to fragments. King Ferdinand had grown indifferent to the claims of the admiral, and did not even consult him in managing the lands beyond the Atlantic. It must be stated, however, that the admiral had not been successful in governing his colony. Columbus was bowed down with grief and disappointment. Old

Fourth

voyage.

1 The letter was addressed to a friend who stood near the queen and who made her acquainted with its contents.

age was deepening the furrows in his brow, and his long years of toil and hardship had utterly broken his health. He was in want of the necessaries of life; but his spirit was unconquerable, and to

Death of
Columbus.

the very last he kept planning to do even greater things for Spain than he had yet done. No palliation can be offered for the sovereign of Spain for allowing this aged navigator, who had done so much for his kingdom, to die in poverty and want. The end came at Valladolid on May 20, 1506, and there his body was buried.1

It is true that Columbus had made a failure in his attempt to govern the colony he had planted in the West Indies, and that the popular clamor against him, both in the colony and in Spain, furnished the sovereigns ample ground for an investigation. It is also true that his ever sanguine spirit, and his belief that he had found Cathay, led him to make promises of gold for the coffers of Spain. that could not be fulfilled. These things and the ceaseless clamor of his enemies led the king to turn a deaf ear to his cries.

It is supposed that he died in the firm belief that he had discovered the eastern coast of Asia and had opened a new route to the Indies. The real grandeur of his achievement perhaps never dawned upon his mind. What a joy must have thrilled his soul and soothed his dying hours could he only have known that he had discovered a vast continent rivaling the Old World in extent, and that his name would be forever enshrined in the human heart as one of the rare few whose luster never fades.

As in the early years of the sixteenth century other navigators. rapidly rose into prominence, the name of Columbus fell into temporary obscurity, but when in later years it was known that it was not the East Indies, but a great new continent that had been discovered; when it was remembered that the world owed the discovery to this wandering Genoese, his half-forgotten name was revived and he was placed among the immortals.

But Columbus, with all his admirable qualities, was very human, and was not without his faults. That he was deeply religious none can deny, but he did not rise above his day and generation in morals. He was in no sense a reformer. He captured an Indian chief by treachery while pretending to be his friend; he kidnapped many

1 His remains were afterward removed to Seville, and later to San Domingo, then to Havana and again back to Spain (1898). The removal from San Domingo to Havana was made in 1796. But there is some doubt that the body removed was that of Columbus. See Adams, p. 249.

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 23

hundred natives and sent them to Spain for the slave market; he advocated the slave trade on a large scale, and inaugurated the treacherous methods of dealing with the Indians that were afterward carried on by Spain for hundreds of years.

But Columbus did a great work for mankind, and the world has rightly chosen to give his name the highest place among the great names of that age of discovery. His greatness consisted, not in his conception of a new thought, for the thought was old, nor in doing for the world a work that no other could have done, but in his willingness to undertake to demonstrate the truth of his theory. He dared to do where others only talked and theorized. In this he stood far above every other man of his times. "He linked forever the two worlds." It is true he achieved more than he intended; but his intentions were great also, and he deserves the highest credit for carrying his vast plan into execution. The fame of Columbus is secure, though "his discovery was a blunder, his blunder was a new world, and the new world is his monument." 1

JOHN CABOT

Continental America was not first discovered by Columbus, but by John Cabot, who like Columbus was an Italian and a native of Genoa. Little is known of the life of Cabot beyond the facts that he was born at Genoa, became a citizen of Venice, and later, about 1490, of Bristol, England; that he was a seaman and merchant, and that, next to the Northmen, he was the first white man known to have made a voyage to North America.

For ages there had been a current belief in England, known to legend and song, that there were lands unknown, somewhere, far away, beyond the stormy western sea. And when the news reached England that Columbus, whose brother had sought in vain for aid from the English king, had succeeded in his great voyage, this belief was confirmed, and Henry VII felt that the prize which might have been his had slipped from his grasp. But when John Cabot applied to him for a permit to seek western lands, it was readily granted. The grant bore the date March 5, 1496, and was issued to John Cabot and his three sons, -Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancto; but for some unknown reason the expedition did not sail for over a year afterward. The start is said to have been made on 2 Payne, Vol. I, p. 232.

1 Winsor.

May 2, 1497, in a single vessel, the Matthew, the crew consisting of eighteen men. They landed, June 24, on the coast of Cape Breton Island, or possibly Newfoundland, or Labrador. They saw no natives, but found their traces, and reported that the natives "used needles for making nets and snares for catching game."

In August, Cabot was again back in Bristol, and it was reported that he had drifted three hundred leagues along the coasts of the new lands; but this is not believed, as the shortness of the time would not have admitted such an extended tour. "Vast honor" was paid to Cabot on his return, we are informed; "he dresses in silk, and the English run after him like mad people." The king granted him a bonus of ten pounds, and later twenty pounds a year. He made a second voyage in 1498, and followed the coast of North America as far south as Cape Hatteras, and some claim to Florida, returning to England late in the autumn. He believed, like Columbus, that he had reached Cipango and Cathay. Nothing is known of Cabot's career after the second voyage. He is supposed to have died in the year 1500.

Sebastian
Cabot.

For many years it was believed that Sebastian Cabot, and not his father, was the real discoverer of North America; but modern research has dealt a damaging blow to this claim. Sebastian was a navigator of some note; he spent many years in the service of England and of Spain; but there is no proof that he had anything to do with the discovery of America. It is possible, even probable, that he and his brothers accompanied their father on his first voyage, but no contemporary record, aside from the king's grant, makes any mention of them, and in the second grant their names are not mentioned. It is now certain that Sebastian Cabot played false to the memory of his father long after these voyages had been made. He gave out that his father had died before the first voyage, and that he himself had commanded both. This story was believed for centuries, but no critical student of history now accepts it. The Cabot discoveries created a furor in England, but it was short-lived. The voyagers brought no gold, and interest in the subject soon died away. But many years later, when

1 One account gives two ships, another five with three hundred men—both of doubtful authority (see Beazly, p. 55). The safest accounts are a letter written by Soncino, an Italian of London, to his friend, the Duke of Milan; and another by Pasqualigo to his family in Venice - both within a few months after Cabot's return. Payne and some other writers think that Cabot started on his first voyage in 1496 and spent the following winter in Iceland.