The spell of Columbus's great discovery stirred the soul of Harry Hall. Holding his half-smoked cigar, he repeated the familiar couplet,
"Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn."
"Strange that four centuries go by before even Genoa erects his monument, which we have admired to-day; though monuments to the memory of Columbus have been erected in many cities, yet, how tardy the world was to appreciate the value of Columbus's discovery, a third of the land of the globe. How pitiful the last days of Columbus, who, old and ill, returning in 1504 from his fourth voyage to the new world, found his patroness Isabella dying, and Ferdinand heartless. With no money to pay his bills, Columbus died May 20th, 1505, in poor quarters at Valladolid, his last words being, 'Into thy hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit.' It is now natural perhaps that many cities should claim his birth and his bones."
"Yes," said Lucille, "how encouraging some of the world's kind epitaphs would be if they were only spoken before death came. Two hemispheres now eagerly study the inspiring story of Columbus's faith, courage, perseverance, and success."
Henley said, "Captain Hall, you are young yet, but by the time you reach my age you will have little use for the sentiment young people so often indulge in. When New York tries her hand with expositions she will doubtless deal with facts. The truth is, Columbus was human like the rest of us, and followed in the wake of others for his own personal aggrandizement. He was not the first man to discover America. The Norsemen antedated him by five centuries."
"What if the Norsemen did first discover America?" said Colonel Harris. "The discoveries of the vikings were not utilized by civilization. It is held by the courts that a patent is valid only in the name of the inventor who first gives the invention a useful introduction. Columbus's discovery was fortunately made at a time when civilization was able with men and money to follow up and appropriate its advantages."
"The true discoverer of America," said Henley, "I believe to be Jean Cousin, a sea captain of Dieppe, France, who crossed the Atlantic and sailed into the Amazon River in 1488, four years before Columbus reached San Salvador. Then Spain, Portugal, the States of the Church, Ferdinand, Isabella, and Columbus attempted to rob Cousin of his bold adventure. In brief these are the facts: Jean Cousin was an able and scientific navigator. In 1487 his skill so contributed in securing a naval victory for the French over the English that the reward for his personal valor was the gift of an armed ship from the merchants of Dieppe, who expected him to go forth in search of new discoveries.
[A]
"In January, 1488, Cousin sailed west out into the Atlantic, and south, for two months with Vincent Pinzon a practical sailor, second in command. He sailed up the Amazon River, secured strange birds, feathers, spices, and unknown woods, and returned to the coast of Africa for a cargo of ivory, oil, skins, and gold dust. Pinzon quarreled with the natives, fired upon them, and seized some of their goods, so that they fled and would not come back to him. He thus lost a valuable return cargo. At Dieppe the merchants were enraged; Pinzon was tried by court martial for imperilling the trade of Africa, and banished from French soil. He thirsted for revenge and went back to Palos to tell his brothers Alonzo and Martin, shipowners, of the mighty Amazon; often they speculated as to the vast lands which the Amazon drained.
"Columbus, discouraged, ridiculed, and begging his way, started out to meet at Huelva his brother-in-law and secure promised help, so that he could visit France. Suddenly he changed his route, stopped at the little convent La Rabida, met Juan Perez, who knew Queen Isabella, and Fernandez the priest, the latter a close friend of the three Pinzon brothers. Columbus got what he wanted at court, returned to Palos, and with the Pinzon brothers sailed west, with Vincent Pinzon, Cousin's shipmate, as pilot. The conclusion that Jean Cousin, and not Columbus first discovered America, seems irresistible. Pope Alexander VI., by Papal bull, had already divided all the new discoveries made, between Catholic Spain and Portugal. Dieppe and France were in the Pope's black books. What chance of recognition had Cousin against Columbus, the protégé of this Pope?"
"You seem to win your case," said Major Williams, "what romance in history will be left us? William Tell is now a myth, and Washington's little hatchet story is no more."