Columbus's interests in Spain.
It is time to watch the effect of the representations of Margarite and Father Boyle at the Spanish Court. Columbus had been doubtless impelled, in these schemes of cruel exaction, by the fear of their influence, and with the hope of meeting their sneers at his ill success with substantial tribute to the Crown. The charges against Columbus and his policy and against his misrepresentation had all the immediate effect of accusations which are supported by one-sided witnesses. Every sentiment of jealousy and pride was played upon, and every circumstance of palliation and modification was ignored. The suspicious reservation which had more or less characterized the bearing of Ferdinand towards the transactions of the hero could become a background to the newer emotions. Fonseca and the comptroller Juan de Soria are charged with an easy acceptance of every insinuation against the Viceroy. The canonizers cannot execrate Fonseca enough. They make him alternately the creature and beguiler of the King. His subserviency, his trading in bishoprics, and his alleged hatred of Columbus are features of all their portraits of him.
Aguado sent to Española.
The case against the Admiral was thus successfully argued. Testimony like that of the receiver of the Crown taxes in rebuttal of charges seemed to weigh little. Movements having been instituted at once (April 7, 1495) to succor the colony by the immediate dispatch of supplies, it was two days later agreed with Beradi—the same with whom Vespucius had been associated, as we have seen—to furnish twelve ships for Española. The resolution was then taken to send an agent to investigate the affairs of the colony. If he should find the Admiral still absent,—for the length of his cruise to Cuba had already, at that time, begun to excite apprehension of his safety,—this same agent was to superintend the distribution of the supplies which he was to take. At this juncture, in April, 1495, Torres, arriving with his fleet, reported the Admiral's safe return, and submitted the notarial document, in which Columbus had made it clear to his own satisfaction that the Golden Chersonesus was in sight. Whether that freak of geographical prescience threw about his expedition a temporary splendor, and again wakened the gratitude of the sovereigns, as Irving says it did, may be left to the imagination; but the fact remains that the sovereigns did not swerve from their purpose to send an inquisitor to the colony, and the same Juan Aguado who had come back with credentials from the Admiral himself was selected for the mission.
1495. April 10. All Spaniards allowed to explore.
Nameless voyagers.
There were some recent orders of the Crown which Aguado was to break to the Admiral, from which Columbus could not fail to discover that the exclusiveness of his powers was seriously impaired. On the 10th of April, 1495, it had been ordered that any native-born Spaniard could invade the seas which had been sacredly apportioned to Columbus, that such navigator might discover what he could, and even settle, if he liked, in Española. This order was a ground of serious complaint by Columbus at a later day, for the reason that this license was availed of by unworthy interlopers. He declares that after the way had been shown even the very tailors turned explorers. It seems tolerably certain that this irresponsible voyaging, which continued till Columbus induced the monarchs to rescind the order in June, 1497, worked developments in the current cartography of the new regions which it is difficult to trace to their distinct sources. Gomara intimates that during this period there were nameless voyagers, of whose exploits we have no record by which to identify them, and Navarrete and Humboldt find evidences of explorations which cannot otherwise be accounted for.
Enemies of Columbus.
How far this condition of affairs was brought about by the importunities of the enemies of Columbus is not clear. The surviving Pinzons are said to have been in part those who influenced the monarchs, but doubtless a share of profits, which the Crown required from all such private speculation, was quite as strong an incentive as any importunities of eager mariners. The burdens of the official expeditions were onerous for an exhausted treasury, and any resource to replenish its coffers was not very narrowly scrutinized in the light of the pledges which Columbus had exacted from a Crown that was beginning to understand the impolicy of such concessions.