Columbus had now been nearly seven years in Spain, waiting for the King to come to a final decision; and this last postponement exhausted his patience. The court had from time to time supplied him with money; but he was not willing to spend his life as a pensioner on the royal bounty, while the western continent was vainly calling to him to come over and discover it. He therefore left Seville, with the resolution to have nothing further to do with Spain, but to proceed to France and try what he could do with the French king.
He seems to have journeyed on foot, for the very next time we hear of him is as a venerable and imposing tramp, accompanied by an unidentified small-boy, and asking for food—presumably buckwheat cakes, and eggs boiled precisely three minutes—at the gate of the convent of Santa Maria de Rabida.
[Æt. 55; 1491]
The Prior of the convent, Juan Perez de Marchena, happened to notice him, and entered into conversation with him. Columbus told him his name, and mentioned that he was on his way to a neighboring town to find his brother-in-law; from which we learn that four hundred years ago the myth of a brother-in-law in the next town was as familiar to the tramps of that period as it is to those of the present day. As the Prior listened to this story without making any remarks upon its improbability, Columbus was tempted to launch into general conversation, and in a few moments told him all about his desire to find a transatlantic continent, and his intention of offering to the King of France the privilege of assisting him.
Doubtless the good friar found his convent life rather monotonous, and perceiving vast possibilities of conversation in Columbus, he determined to ask him to spend the night with him. Columbus, of course, accepted the invitation, and, the Prior sending for the village doctor, the three spent a delightful evening.
The next day both the Prior and the doctor agreed that Columbus was really a remarkable man, and that it would be disgraceful if the French king were to be allowed to assist in discovering a new continent. The Prior sent for several ancient mariners residing in the neighboring port of Palos, and requested them to give their opinion of the matter. With one accord, they supported the scheme of Columbus with arguments the profundity of which Captain Bunsby himself might have envied; and one Martin Alonzo Pinzon, in particular, was so enthusiastic that he offered to pay the expenses of Columbus while making another application to the court, and to furnish and take command of a vessel in case the application should be successful.
[Æt. 55; 1491–92]
The religious interests of the convent must have suffered somewhat from the Prior’s geographical soirées. It must have required a great deal of punch to bring those ancient seafaring men into unanimity upon any subject, and the extent to which Columbus unquestionably availed himself of the opportunity for unrestrained conversation must have left the Prior no time whatever for prayers. He may have excused himself to his own conscience by pretending that to listen to Columbus was a means of mortifying the flesh; but, plausible as this excuse was, it could not justify the introduction of punch, seafaring men, and village doctors into a professedly religious house.
The upshot of the matter was, that the Prior resolved to write a letter to the Queen, and old Sebastian Rodriguez, a veteran sailor, staked the future integrity of his personal eyes upon his delivery of the letter into the hands of Isabella. The Prior had been formerly the Queen’s confessor, and of course he knew how to awaken her interest by little allusions to the sinful secrets that she had committed to his holy keeping.
The letter was written, and in two weeks’ time Rodriguez brought back an answer summoning the Prior to court. The good old man was overjoyed, and immediately went to Santa Fé, where the King and Queen were stopping, on their way to another Moorish war. When he was admitted to the Queen’s presence, he conducted himself with so much discretion, and made so favorable an impression, that Isabella gave him the magnificent sum of twenty thousand maravedies, and told him to hand it over to Columbus, and to send that persistent navigator immediately to her. It is somewhat of a disappointment to learn that the twenty thousand maravedies were in reality worth only seventy-two dollars; still they were enough to enable Columbus to buy a mule and a new spring overcoat, and thus to appear at court in an impressive manner.