The Hour Of Triumph - 4

The Hour Of Triumph - 4

 The dignities that had been provisionally granted to Columbus before his departure on the

first voyage were now elaborately confirmed; and in addition he was given another

title—that of Captain-General of the large fleet which was to be fitted out to sail to the

new colonies. He was entrusted with the royal seal, which gave him the right to grant

letters patent, to issue commissions, and to Appoint deputies in the royal name. A coatof-

arms was also granted to him in which, in its original form, the lion and castle of Leon

and Castile were quartered with islands of the sea or on a field azure, and five anchors or

on a field azure. This was changed from time to time, chiefly by Columbus himself, who

afterwards added a continent to the islands, and modified the blazonry of the lion and

castle to agree with those on the royal arms—a piece of ignorance and childish arrogance

which was quite characteristic of him.

[A motto has since been associated with the coat-of-arms, although it is not certain that

Columbus adopted it in his lifetime. In one form it reads:

"Por Castilla e por Leon Nueva Mundo hallo Colon."]

(For Castile and Leon Columbus found a New World.)

And in the other:

"A Castilla y a Leon Nuevo Mundo dio Colon."

(To Castile and Leon Columbus gave a New World.)

Equally characteristic and less excusable was his acceptance of the pension of ten

thousand maravedis which had been offered to the member of the expedition who should

first sight land. Columbus was granted a very large gratuity on his arrival in Barcelona,

and even taking the product of the islands at a tenth part of their value as estimated by

him, he still had every right to suppose himself one of the richest men in Spain. Yet he

accepted this paltry pension of L8. 6s. 8d. in our modern money (of 1900), which, taking

the increase in the purchasing power of money at an extreme estimate, would not be more

than the equivalent of $4000 now. Now Columbus had not been the first person to see

land; he saw the light, but it was Rodrigo de Triana, the look-out man on the Pinta, who

first saw the actual land. Columbus in his narrative to the King and Queen would be sure

to make much of the seeing of the light, and not so much of the actual sighting of land;

and he was on the spot, and the reward was granted to him. Even if we assume that in

strict equity Columbus was entitled to it, it was at least a matter capable of argument, if

only Rodrigo de Triana had been there to argue it; and what are we to think of the

Admiral of the Ocean Seas and Viceroy of the Indies who thus takes what can only be

called a mean advantage of a poor seaman in his employ? It would have been a

competence and a snug little fortune to Rodrigo de Triana; it was a mere flea-bite to a

man who was thinking in eighth parts of continents. It may be true, as Oviedo alleges,

that Columbus transferred it to Beatriz Enriquez; but he had no right to provide for her

out of money that in all equity and decency ought to have gone to another and a poorer

man. His biographers, some of whom have vied with his canonisers in insisting upon

seeing virtue in his every action, have gone to all kinds of ridiculous extremes in

accounting for this piece of meanness. Irving says that it was "a subject in which his

whole ambition was involved"; but a plain person will regard it as an instance of greed

and love of money. We must not shirk facts like this if we wish to know the man as he

really was. That he was capable of kindness and generosity, and that he was in the main

kind-hearted, we have fortunately no reason to doubt; and if I dwell on some of his less

amiable characteristics it is with no desire to magnify them out of their due proportion.

They are part of that side of him that lay in shadow, as some side of each one of us lies;

for not all by light nor all by shade, but by light and shade combined, is the image of a

man made visible to us.

It is quite of a piece with the character of Columbus that while he was writing a receipt

for the look-out man's money and thinking what a pretty gift it would make for Beatriz

Enriquez he was planning a splendid and spectacular thank-offering for all the dignities

to which he had been raised; and, brooding upon the vast wealth that was now to be his,

that he should register a vow to furnish within seven years an expedition of four thousand

horse and fifty thousand foot for the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, and a similar force

within five years after the first if it should be necessary. It was probable that the vow was

a provisional one, and that its performance was to be contingent on his actual receipt and

possession of the expected money; for as we know, there was no money and no

expedition. The vow was in effect a kind of religious flourish much beloved by

Columbus, undertaken seriously and piously enough, but belonging rather to his public

than to his private side. A much more simple and truly pious act of his was, not the

promising of visionary but the sending of actual money to his old father in Savona, which

he did immediately after his arrival in Spain. The letter which he wrote with that kindly

remittance, not being couched in the pompous terms which he thought suitable for

princes, and doubtless giving a brief homely account of what he had done, would, if we

could come by it, be a document beyond all price; but like every other record of his

family life it has utterly perished.