r would have been cut by the sword of its discoverer.
We should not have seen nations which are separated from the Roman
communion, both Protestant and Pantheistic governments, coming
audaciously into contest for privileges, which, by the rights of old
possession, by the rights of martyrdom and chivalry, belong to the Holy
Catholic Church, the Apostolic Church, the Roman Church, and after her
to France, her oldest daughter."

Columbus now supposed that the share of the western wealth which would
belong to him would be sufficient for him to equip and arm a hundred
thousand infantry and ten thousand horsemen.

At the moment when the Christian hero made this pious calculation he
had not enough of this revenue with which "to buy a cloak," This is the
remark of the enthusiastic biographer from whom we have already quoted.

It is not literally true, but it is true that Columbus was living in the
most modest way at the time when he was pressing his ambitious schemes
upon the court. At the same time, he wrote a poem with which he
undertook to press the same great enterprise upon his readers. It was
called "The End of Man," "Memorare novissima tua, et non peccabis in
eternum."

In his letter to the king and queen he says, "Animated as by a heavenly
fire, I came to your Highnesses; all who heard of my enterprise mocked
it; all the sciences I had acquired profited me as nothing; seven years
did I pass in your royal court, disputing the case with persons of great
authority and learned in all the arts, and in the end they decided that
all was vain. In your Highnesses alone remained faith and constancy. Who
will doubt that this light was from the Holy Scriptures, illumining you,
as well as myself, with rays of marvellous brightness."

It is probable that the king and queen were, to a certain extent,
influenced by his enthusiasm. It is certain that they knew that
something was due to their reputation and to his success. By whatever
motive led, they encouraged him with hopes that he might be sent forward
again, this time, not as commander of a colony, but as a discoverer.
Discovery was indeed the business which he understood, and to which
alone he should ever have been commissioned.

It is to be remembered that the language of crusaders was not then
a matter of antiquity, and was not used as if it alluded to bygone
affairs. It was but a few years since the Saracens had been driven out
of Spain, and all men regarded them as being