The Bishop of Ceuta, in spite of his remarks at the meeting of the committee, evidently thought there might be something in Columbus’s plan after all. He therefore proposed to the King that Columbus should be induced to furnish written proposals and specifications for the discovery of transatlantic countries, and that with the help of the information thus furnished the King should secretly send a vessel to test the practicability of the scheme. This was done, but the vessel returned after a few days, having discovered nothing but water.
[Æt. 46–48; 1484]
As soon as Columbus heard of this trick he became excessively angry, and resolved that King John should never have a square foot of new territory, nor a solitary heathen soul to convert, if he could help it. Accordingly, he broke off his acquaintance with the King, and proposed to leave Lisbon, in the mean time sending his brother Bartholomew to England to ask if the English King would like to order a supply of new islands or a transatlantic continent. His wife had already succumbed to her husband’s unremitting conversation concerning explorations, and died, doubtless with much resignation. Madame Perestrello, Pedro Correo, and Mrs. Columbus were probably only a few of the many unhappy Portuguese who suffered from the fatal conversational powers of Columbus, and Portugal may have become rather an unsafe place for him. This would account for the stealthy way in which he left that kingdom, and is at least as probable as the more common theory that he ran away to escape his creditors.
It was in the year 1484 that Columbus, accompanied by his son Diego, shook the dust of Portugal from his feet and climbed over the back-fence into Spain, in the dead of night, instead of openly taking the regular mail-coach. The King of England had refused to listen to Bartholomew’s proposals, and King John had been guilty of conduct unbecoming a monarch and a gentleman. This may have given Columbus a prejudice against kings, for he made his next applications to the Dukes of Medina Sidonia and Medina Celi—two noblemen residing in the south of Spain.
[Æt. 48; 1484–87]
Medina Sidonia listened to Columbus with much interest, and evidently regarded him as an entertaining kind of lunatic; but after a time he became seriously alarmed at the Italian’s inexhaustible capacity for talk, and courteously got rid of him before sustaining any permanent injury. The Duke of Medina Celi was a braver man, and not only invited Columbus to come and stay at his house, but actually spoke of lending him ships and money. He changed his mind, however, and told Columbus that he really could not take the liberty of fitting out an expedition which ought to be fitted out by a king. Columbus then remarked that he would step over to France and speak to the French King about it; whereupon the Duke hastily wrote to Queen Isabella, of Castile and Aragon, mentioning that he had a mariner of great merit in his house, whom she really ought to see. The Queen graciously wrote, requesting the Duke to forward his ancient mariner to the royal palace at Cordova, which he accordingly did, furnishing Columbus at the same time with a letter of introduction to Her Majesty.
Spain was then merely a geographical expression. Ferdinand, King of Aragon, had recently married Isabella, Queen of Castile, and their joint property was called the Kingdom of Castile and Aragon; for, inasmuch as the Moors still ruled over the southern part of the peninsula, it would have been indelicate for Ferdinand and his queen to pretend that they were the monarchs of all Spain.
When Columbus reached Cordova he found that their majesties were on the point of marching against the Moors, and had no time to listen to any plans of exploration. Before starting, however, the Queen deposited Columbus with Alonzo de Quintanilla, the treasurer of Castile, and, we may presume, took a receipt for him. Quintanilla, an affable old gentleman, was much pleased with Columbus, and soon became a warm advocate of his theories. He introduced the navigator to several influential friends, and Columbus passed the summer and winter very pleasantly.
At Cordova he also met a young person named Beatrix Enriquez, to whom he became much attached, and who was afterward the mother of his son Fernando. She probably had her good qualities; but as Columbus was so much preoccupied with his transatlantic projects he forgot to marry her, and hence she is scarcely the sort of young person to be introduced into a virtuous biography.
[Æt. 48–51; 1484–87]