Those who had ridiculed his project, were the readiest to pay court to him. He was ordered into the presence of Ferdinand and Isabella, and desired to sit covered like a grandee of Spain. Royal favour beamed upon him with unremitting brightness, and the church loaded him with its benedictions. Superstition lent its sanction to those discoveries which had been made in its defiance. Pope Alexander VI. issued a bull, granting to the sovereigns of Spain all the countrics which they had discovered, or should discover, an hundred leagues to the westward of the Azores. A fleet of seventeen sail was fitted out in a few months; and Colum. bus, vested with yet more extensive powers, and furnished with every thing necessary for discovery, for colonization, or for conquest, again committed himself to the waves in quest of a Western Continent14. He Great things were expected from this second voyage; and many new islands were discovered; yet it ended in general disappointment, misfortune, and disgust. When Columbus arrived at Hispaniola, with a multitude of missionaries, soldiers, and settlers, he found the fortress utterly ruined, and the garrison all massacred. They had drawn upon themselves this untimely fate by their arrogance, licentiousness, and tyranny. Those particulars he learned from the natives, accompanied with such marking circumstances, as left him no room to disbelieve them. therefore entered once more into friendly correspondence with those artless people, established a new colony, and built the town of Isabella; afterwards abandoned for that of St. Domingo, which became the capital of the island. His next care was to discover the mines; near which he erected forts, and left garrisons to protect the labourers. But neither the wisdom nor humanity of this great man were sufficient to preserve order among his followers, or to teach them fellow-fedling. They roused anew, by their barbarities, the gentle spirit of the natives; they 14. Life of Columbus, chap. xlii. xliii. quarrelled quarrelled among themselves, they rose against their commander. Mortified by so many untoward circumstances, Columbus committed the government of the island to his brother Bartholomew, and returned to Spain in 1496, with some samples of gold dust and gold ore, pearls, and other precious products, after having a second time attempted in vain to discover a Western Continent's. Bartholomew Columbus suffered many hardships, and was on the point or sinking under the mutineers, before he received any assistance from the court of Spain: and although the great Christopher was able to clear himself of all the aspersions of his enemies, some years elapsed before he could obtain a third appointment for the prosecution of his favourite project. At last a small fleet was granted him, and he discovered the continent of America, near the mouth of the river Orinoco, on the first day of August in the year 1498. He carried off six of the natives, and returned to Hispaniola, convinced that he had now reached the great object of his ambition. But while Columbus was employed in reducing to obedience the mutineers in that island, another navigator unjustly took from him the honour of the discovery of the Western Continent. The merchants of Seville having obtained permission to attempt discoveries, as private adventurers, sent out four ships in 1499, under the command of Alonzo de Ojeda, who had accompanied Columbus in his second voyage, assisted by Americus Vespucius, a Florentine gentleman, deeply skilled in the science of navigation. This fleet touched on that part of the western continent already discovered by Columbus, whose tract Ojeda followed; and Americus, who was a man of much address, as well as possessed of considerable literary talents, by publishing the first voyages on the subject, and other artful means, gave his 15. Herrera, dec. i. lib. i. name name to the New World, in prejudice to the illustrious Genoese16. Mankind are now become sensible of the imposture, but time has sanctioned the error; and the great Western continent, or fourth division of the globe, so long unknown to the inhabitants of Europe, Asia and Africa, still continues to be distinguished by the name of AMERICA. This, however, was but a small misfortune in comparison of what Columbus was doomed to suffer. His enemies having prevai ed at the court of Madrid, a new governor was sent out to Hispaniola. The great discoverer and his brother were loaded with irons, and sent home in that condition, in different ships. Touched with sentiments of veneration and pity, Vallejo, captain of the vessel on board of which the admiral was confined, approached his prisoner with profound respect, as soon as he was clear of the island, and offered to strike off the fetters with which he was unjustly bound. "No, Vallejo!"-replied Columbus, with a generous indignation, "I wear these fetters in consequence "of an order from my sovereigns. They shall find me as "obedient to this, as to all their other injunctions. By their "command I have been confined, and their command alone "shall set me at liberty17," The Spanish ministry were ashamed of the severity of their creature, Bovadilla: Columbus was set at liberty on his arrival, and a fourth command granted him in 1502, for the prosecution of farther discoveries. But this expedition did not prove more fortunate than the former; for although Columbus touched at several parts of the American continent, where he exchanged trinkets for gold and pearls, to a considerable amount, he failed in an attempt to establish a colony on the river Yebra or Belem, in the province of Veragua, and lost every thing in his course home. He was shipwrecked on the island of Jamaica: his followers muti 16. Herrera, dec. i. lib. iv. 17. Life of Columbus, chap. xxxiii. nied; and after being alternately in danger of perishing by hunger, or by violence, he arrived in Spain, in 1505, to experience a more severe fate than either18. Queen Isabella was dead at his return. With her all his hopes of future favour perished. The court received him coldly. His services were too great for humility; his proud heart disdained to sue, and his aspiring spirit could not submit to neglect. He retired to Valadolid, where he was suffered to fall a martyr to the ingratitude of that monarch, to whom he had given the West-Indies, and for whom he had opened a pas sage into a richer and more extensive empire than was ever subdued by the Roman arms. He died with firmness and composure, on the 20th of May, 1506, in the fifty-ninth year of his age19. There is something in true genius which seems to be essentially connected with humanity. Don Henry, Gama, and Columbus prosecuted their discoveries upon the most liberal principles, those of mutual advantage: they sought to benefit, not to destroy their species. After the death of Columbus, the maxims of Spain, like those of Portugal, became altogether bloody. Religion, avarice, and violence, walked hand in hand. The cross was held up as an object of worship to those who had never heard of the name of Jesus; and millions were deliberately butchered, for not embracing tenets which they could not understand, not delivering treasures which they did not possess, or not suffering oppressions which man was never born to bear, and which his nature cannot sustain2o. The leader who pursued these new maxims with least violence to humanity, and most advantage to his country, was Fernando Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico. Before the discovery of that rich and powerful empire, the Spanish colonies of Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and Porto Rico, 18. Life of Columbus, chap. lxxxi. xc. xci. 20. Relation de Destruye de las Indias, par Bart. de las Casas. were were in a flourishing condition: frequent expeditions had been made to the continent, the settlements established in Castello del Oro and the isthmus of Darien. At last a descent was made in the gulf of Mexico, and information received of the opulence and grandeur of the emperor Montezuma and his capital. Velasquez, go A. D. 1518. vernor of Cuba, to whom this intelligence was communicated, immediately resolved upon the conquest of Mexico, and committed to Cortez, an officer hitherto more distinguished by his merit than his rank, the execution of the enterprize: and that gallant soldier accomplished, what appears too bold even for fiction, the overthrow of an empire that could send millions into the field, with so small a force as five hundred men11. A success so unexampled, in an unknown country, must have been accompanied with many favourable circumstances, independent of the ability of the general, the courage of the troops, and even the superiority of weapons. Some of these we know. When Cortez landed with A. D. 1519. his little army on the coast of Mexico, he met with a Spanish captive, who understood the dialect of the country, and whose ransom he obtained. He also formed an intimacy with a fair American named Marina, who soon learned the Castilian language, and became both his mistress and his counsellor. Her attachment communicated itself to all the Mexican women, who were generally neglected by their husbands for the most abominable of all debaucheries; that which perverts the animal instinct, confounds the distinction of sex, and defeats the leading purpose of nature. While the men opposed their naked breasts to the weapons of the Spaniards, fell by their blows, or fled from their fury, the women every where flew to their embrace; rioted in their arms, and rendered them all the services in their power. 21. De Solis, lib. ii. Herrera, dec. ii. Το |