Crisis In The Admiral's Life - 1

Crisis In The Admiral's Life - 1

Columbus was not far wrong in his estimate of the effect likely to be produced by his
manacles, and when the ships of Villegio arrived at Cadiz in October, the spectacle of an
Admiral in chains produced a degree of commiseration which must have exceeded his
highest hopes. He was now in his fiftieth year and of an extremely venerable appearance,
his kindling eye looking forth from under brows of white, his hair and beard snow-white,
his face lined and spiritualised with suffering and sorrow. It must be remembered that
before the Spanish people he had always appeared in more or less state. They had not that
intimacy with him, an intimacy which perhaps brought contempt, which the people in
Espanola enjoyed; and in Spain, therefore, the contrast between his former grandeur and
this condition of shame and degradation was the more striking. It was a fact that the
people of Spain could not neglect. It touched their sense of the dramatic and picturesque,
touched their hearts also perhaps—hearts quick to burn, quick to forget. They had
forgotten him before, now they burned with indignation at the picture of this venerable
and much-suffering man arriving in disgrace.
His letter to Dofia Juana, hastily despatched by him, probably through the office of some
friendly soul on board, immediately on his arrival at Cadiz, was the first news from the
ship received by the King and Queen, and naturally it caused them a shock of surprise. It
was followed by the despatches from Bobadilla and by a letter from the Alcalde of Cadiz
announcing that Columbus and his brothers were in his custody awaiting the royal orders.
Perhaps Ferdinand and Isabella had already repented their drastic action and had
entertained some misgivings as to its results; but it is more probable that they had put it
out of their heads altogether, and that their hasty action now was prompted as much by
the shock of being recalled to a consciousness of the troubled state of affairs in the New
World as by any real regret for what they had done. Moreover they had sent out
Bobadilla to quiet things down; and the first result of it was that Spain was ringing with
the scandal of the Admiral's treatment. In that Spanish world, unsteadfast and unstable,
when one end of the see-saw was up the other must be down; and it was Columbus who
now found himself high up in the heavens of favour, and Bobadilla who was seated in the
dust. Equipoise any kind was apparently a thing impossible; if one man was right the
other man must be wrong; no excuses for Bobadilla; every excuse for the Admiral.
The first official act, therefore, was an order for the immediate release of the Admiral and
his brothers, followed by an invitation for him to proceed without delay to the Court at
Granada, and an order for the immediate payment to him of the sum of 2000 ducats
[perhaps $250,000 in the year 2000 D.W.] this last no ungenerous gift to a Viceroy whose
pearl accounts were in something less than order. Perhaps Columbus had cherished the
idea of appearing dramatically before the very Court in his rags and chains; but the
cordiality of their letter as well as the gift of money made this impossible. Instead, not
being a man to do things by halves, he equipped himself in his richest and most splendid
garments, got together the requisite number of squires and pages, and duly presented
himself at Granada in his full dignity. The meeting was an affecting one, touched with a
humanity which has survived the intervening centuries, as a touch of true humanity will
when details of mere parade and etiquette have long perished. Perhaps the Admiral,
inspired with a deep sense of his wrongs, meant to preserve a very stiff and cold
demeanour at the beginning of this interview; but when he looked into the kind eyes of
Isabella and saw them suffused with tears at the thought of his sorrows all his dignity
broke down; the tears came to his own eyes, and he wept there naturally like a child.
Ferdinand looking on kind but uncomfortable; Isabella unaffectedly touched and
weeping; the Admiral, in spite of his scarlet cloak and golden collar and jewelled sword,
in spite of equerries, squires, pages and attendants, sobbing on his knees like a child or an
old man-these were the scenes and kindly emotions of this historic moment.
The tears were staunched by kindly royal words and handkerchiefs supplied by attendant
pages; sobbings breaking out again, but on the whole soon quieted; King and Queen
raising the gouty Christopher from his knees, filling the air with kind words of sympathy,
praise, and encouragement; the lonely worn heart, somewhat arid of late, and parched
from want of human sympathy, much refreshed by this dew of kindness. The Admiral
was soon himself again, and he would not have been himself if upon recovering he had
not launched out into what some historians call a "lofty and dignified vindication of his
loyalty and zeal." No one, indeed, is better than the Admiral at such lofty and dignified
vindications. He goes into the whole matter and sets forth an account of affairs at
Espanola from his own point of view; and can even (so high is the thermometer of
favour) safely indulge in a little judicious self-depreciation, saying that if he has erred it
has not been from want of zeal but from want of experience in dealing with the kind of
material he has been set to govern. All this is very human, natural, and understandable;
product of that warm emotional atmosphere, bedewed with tears, in which the Admiral
finds himself; and it is not long before the King and Queen, also moved to it by the
emotional temperature, are expressing their unbroken and unbounded confidence in him
and repudiating the acts of Bobadilla, which they declare to have been contrary to their
instructions; undertaking also that he shall be immediately dismissed from his post. Poor
Bobadilla is not here in the warm emotional atmosphere; he had his turn of it six months
ago, when no powers were too high or too delicate to be entrusted to him; he is out in the
cold at the other end of the see-saw, which has let him down to the ground with a
somewhat sudden thump.
Columbus, relying on the influence of these emotions, made bold to ask that his property
in the island should be restored to him, which was immediately granted; and also to
request that he should be reinstated in his office of Viceroy and allowed to return at once
in triumph to Espanola. But emotions are unstable things; they present a yielding surface
which will give to any extent, but which, when it has hardened again after the tears have
evaporated, is often found to be in much the same condition as before. At first promises
were made that the whole matter should be fully gone into; but when it came to cold fact,
Ferdinand was obliged to recognise that this whole business of discovery and
colonisation had become a very different thing to what it had been when Columbus was
the only discoverer; and he was obviously of opinion that, as Columbus's office had once
been conveniently withdrawn from him, it would only be disastrous to reinstate him in it.
Of course he did not say so at once; but reasons were given for judicious delay in the
Admiral's reappointment. It was represented to him that the colony, being in an extremely
unsettled state, should be given a short period of rest, and also that it would be as well for
him to wait until the people who had given him so much trouble in the island could be
quietly and gradually removed. Two years was the time mentioned as suitable for an
interregnum, and it is probable that it was the intention of Isabella, although not of
Ferdinand, to restore Columbus to his office at the end of that time.