of Ferdinand and Isabella. Nevertheless, he was
brought home prisoner to Spain, by judges who had been purposely sent
out on board to observe his conduct. As soon as it was known that
Columbus was arrived, the people ran in shoals to meet him, as the
guardian genius of Spain. Columbus was brought from the ship, and
appeared on shore chained hands and feet.

10. He had been thus treated by the orders of Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos,
the intendant of the expedition, whose ingratitude was as great as the
other's services. Isabella was ashamed of what she saw, and did all in
her power to make Columbus amends for the injuries done to him: however
he was not suffered to depart for four years, either because they feared
that he would seize upon what he had discovered for himself, or that
they were willing to have time to observe his behaviour. At length he
was sent on another voyage to the new world; and now it was that he
discovered the continent, at six degrees distance from the equator, and
saw that part of the coast on which Carthagena has been since built.

11. At the time that Columbus first promised a new hemisphere, it was
insisted upon that no such hemisphere could exist; and after he had made
the actual discovery of it, it was pretended that it had been known long
before.

12. I shall not mention one Martin Behem, of Nuremberg, who, it is said,
went from that city to the Straits of Magellan, in 1460, with a patent
from the Duchess of Burgundy, who, as she was not alive at that time,
could not issue patents. Nor shall I take notice of the pretended charts
of this Martin Behem, which are still shewn; nor of the evident
contradictions which discredit this story: but, in short, it was not
pretended that Martin Behem had peopled America; the honour was given to
the Carthaginians, and a book of Aristotle was quoted on the occasion,
which he never wrote. Some found out a conformity between some words in
the Caribee and Hebrew languages, and did not fail to follow so fine an
opening. Others were positive that the children of Noah, after settling
in Siberia, passed from thence over to Canada on the ice, and that their
descendants, afterwards born in Canada, had gone and peopled Peru.
According to others again, the Chinese and Japanese sent colonies into
America, and carried over lions with them for their diversion, though
there are no lions either in China or Japan.

13. In this manner have many learned men argued upon the d