_Of Columbus, and the Discovery of America._

1. It is to the discoveries of the Portuguese in the old world, that we
are indebted for the new, if we may call the conquest of America an
obligation, which proved so fatal to its inhabitants, and at times to
the conquerors themselves.

2. This was doubtless the most important event that ever happened on our
globe, one half of which had been hitherto strangers to the other.
Whatever had been esteemed most great or noble before, seemed absorbed
in this kind of new creation. We still mention, with respectful
admiration, the names of the Argonauts, who did not perform the
hundredth part of what was done by the sailors under Gama and
Albuquerque. How many altars would have been raised by the ancients to a
Greek who had discovered America! and yet Bartholomew and Christopher
Columbus were not thus rewarded.

3. Columbus, struck with the wonderful expeditions of the Portuguese,
imagined that something greater might be done; and from a bare
inspection of the map of our world, concluded that there must be another
which might be found by sailing always west. He had courage equal to his
genius, or indeed superior, seeing he had to struggle with the
prejudices of his cotemporaries, and the repulses of several princes to
whom he had tendered his services.

4. Genoa, which was his native country, treated his schemes as
visionary, and by that means lost the only opportunity that could have
offered of aggrandizing her power. Henry VII. king of England, who was
too greedy of money, to hazard any on this noble attempt, would not
listen to the proposals made by Columbus's brother; and Columbus himself
was rejected by John II. of Portugal, whose attention was wholly
employed upon the coast of Africa. He had no prospect of success in
applying to the French, whose marine lay totally neglected, and their
affairs more confused than ever, daring the Minority of Charles VIII.
The emperor Maximilian, had neither ports for shipping, money to fit out
a fleet, nor sufficient courage to engage in a scheme of this nature.
The Venetians, indeed, might have undertaken it; but whether the natural
aversion of the Genoese to these people, would not suffer Columbus to
apply to the rivals of his country, or that the Venetians had no idea of
any thing more important than the trade they carried on from Alexandria
and in the Levant, Columbus at length fixed all his hopes on the court
of Spain.

5. Ferdina