emory
of Christopher Columbus, when I heard some months ago that thirty-seven
guns had been fired off for him in Boston. It is to be hoped that they
were some satisfaction to him. They were discharged by countrymen of
his, who are justly proud that he should have been able, after a search
of only a few weeks, to find a land where the hand-organ had never
been heard. The Italians, as a people, have not profited much by this
discovery; not so much, indeed, as the Spaniards, who got a reputation
by it which even now gilds their decay. That Columbus was born in Genoa
entitles the Italians to celebrate the great achievement of his life;
though why they should discharge exactly thirty-seven guns I do not
know. Columbus did not discover the United States: that we partly found
ourselves, and partly bought, and gouged the Mexicans out of. He did not
even appear to know that there was a continent here. He discovered
the West Indies, which he thought were the East; and ten guns would
be enough for them. It is probable that he did open the way to the
discovery of the New World. If he had waited, however, somebody else
would have discovered it,--perhaps some Englishman; and then we might
have been spared all the old French and Spanish wars. Columbus let the
Spaniards into the New World; and their civilization has uniformly been
a curse to it. If he had brought Italians, who neither at that time
showed, nor since have shown, much inclination to come, we should have
had the opera, and made it a paying institution by this time. Columbus
was evidently a person who liked to sail about, and did n't care much
for consequences.

Perhaps it is not an open question whether Columbus did a good thing in
first coming over here, one that we ought to celebrate with salutes and
dinners. The Indians never thanked him, for one party. The Africans had
small ground to be gratified for the market he opened for them. Here
are two continents that had no use for him. He led Spain into a dance
of great expectations, which ended in her gorgeous ruin. He introduced
tobacco into Europe, and laid the foundation for more tracts and nervous
diseases than the Romans had in a thousand years. He introduced the
potato into Ireland indirectly; and that caused such a rapid increase
of population, that the great famine was the result, and an enormous
emigration to New York--hence Tweed and the constituency of the Ring.
Columbus is really responsible for New York. He is