Perhaps Columbus really thought that he wanted to dispense the Gospel and fight the Mahometans, and that he did not care a straw about becoming a great explorer and having the State capital of Ohio named for him; but his fixed determination not to carry a particle of Gospel to the smallest possible pagan, except upon terms highly advantageous to his pocket and his schemes of personal aggrandizement, is scarcely reconcilable with his pious protestations. His own church decided, not very long ago, that his moral character did not present available materials for the manufacture of a saint, and it is only too probable that the church was right.
It is a curious illustration of the determination of his biographers to prove him an exceptionally noble man, that they dwell with much emphasis upon his stern determination not to undertake any explorations except upon his own extravagant terms. To the unprejudiced mind his conduct might seem that of a shrewd and grasping man, bent upon making a profitable speculation. The biographers, however, insist that it was the conduct of a great and noble nature, caring for nothing except geographical discovery and the conversion of unlimited heathen.
About this time Columbus is believed to have written a great many letters to various people, asking their candid opinion upon the propriety of discovering new continents or new ways to old Asiatic countries. Paulo Toscanelli, of Florence, a leading scientific person, sent him, in answer to one of his letters, a map of the Atlantic and the eastern coast of Asia, which displayed a bolder imagination than Columbus had shown in any of his own maps, and which so delighted him that he put it carefully away, to use in case his dream of exploration should be realized. Toscanelli’s map has proved to be of much more use to historians than it was to Columbus, for the letter in which it was enclosed was dated in the year 1474, and it thus gives us the earliest date at which we can feel confident Columbus was entertaining the idea of his great voyage.
[Æt. 45; 1481]
How long Columbus resided at Porto Santo we have no means of knowing; neither do we know why he left that place. It is certain, however, that he returned to Lisbon either before or very soon after the accession of King John II. to the Portuguese throne, an event which took place in 1481. Meanwhile, as we learn from one of his letters, he made a voyage in 1477 to an island which his biographers have agreed to call Iceland, although Columbus lacked inclination—or perhaps courage—to call it by that name. He says he made the voyage in February, and he does not appear to have noticed that the water was frozen. The weak point in his narrative—provided he really did visit Iceland—is his omission to mention how he warmed the Arctic ocean so as to keep it free of ice in February. Had he only given us a description of his sea-warming method, it would have been of inestimable service to the people of Iceland, since it would have rendered the island easily accessible at all times of the year, and it would also have materially lessened the difficulty which explorers find in sailing to the North Pole. It is probable that Columbus visited some warmer and easier island than Iceland—say one of the Hebrides. In those days a voyage from southern Europe to Iceland would have been a remarkable feat, and Columbus would not have failed to demand all the credit due him for so bold an exploit.
The immediate predecessor of King John—King Alfonso—preferred war to exploration, and as he was occupied during the latter part of his reign in a very interesting war with Spain, it is improbable that Columbus wasted time in asking him to fit out a transatlantic expedition. There is a rumor that, prior to the accession of King John II., Columbus applied to Genoa for assistance in his scheme of exploration, but the rumor rests upon no evidence worth heeding.
Genoa, as every one knows, was then a republic. It needed all its money to pay the expenses of the administration party at elections, to improve its inland harbors and subterranean rivers, and to defray the cost of postal routes in inaccessible parts of the country. Had Columbus asked for an appropriation, the Genoese politicians would have denounced the folly and wickedness of squandering the people’s money on scientific junketing expeditions, and would have maintained that a free and enlightened republic ought not to concern itself with the effete and monarchical countries of Asia, to which Columbus was anxious to open a new route.
Moreover, Columbus had been absent from Genoa for several years. He had no claims upon any of the Genoese statesmen, and was without influence enough to carry his own ward. An application of any sort coming from such a man would have been treated with deserved contempt; and we may be very sure that, however much Columbus may have loved the old Genoese flag and desired an appropriation, he had far too much good sense to dream of asking any favors from his fellow-countrymen. Undoubtedly he was as anxious to start in search of America while he lived at Porto Santo as he was at a later period, but he knew that only a king would feel at liberty to use public funds in what the public would consider a wild and profitless expedition; and as there was no king whom he could hope to interest in his scheme, he naturally waited until a suitable king should appear.
The death of Alfonso provided him with what he imagined would prove to be a king after his own heart, for King John was no sooner seated on the throne than he betrayed an abnormal longing for new countries by sending explorers in search of Prester John.
[Æt. 45; 1481–82]