CHAPTER XVIII.
HIS LAST YEARS.
[Æt. 67; 1503]
The ships were now hopeless wrecks, and there was nothing more to be done with them except to abandon them to the underwriters and claim a total loss. The only chance that the Spaniards could avoid laying their bones in the bake-ovens of the Jamaican natives was in communicating with San Domingo, but in the absence of any efficient postal service this chance seemed very small. Diego Mendez, who was the captain of one of the vessels, and who had earned the confidence of Columbus by the skill with which he superintended the escape of the beleaguered colonists from Quibian’s hordes, volunteered to take a canoe and, with the help of Indian paddlers, make his way across the one hundred and twenty miles of sea which stretched between Jamaica and Hispaniola. He started on his voyage, and skirted the shore of Jamaica, so that he could land from time to time and take in provisions.
It struck the natives that they might as well improve the opportunity to lay in provisions for themselves, and accordingly they attacked Mendez with great energy and appetite, and made him and his Indian paddlers prisoners. There being in all seven prisoners, a dispute arose as to the fairest way of dividing them, and the savages agreed to settle it by a game of chance—which was probably “seven-up.” Mendez took advantage of the quarrelling to which the game gave rise, and ran away. At the end of a fortnight he appeared before the Admiral and announced that all was lost except honor and his canoe.
The bold Mendez was not disheartened, but volunteered to make a second attempt. This time he was joined by Fresco, the captain of the other wreck, together with twelve Spaniards and twenty Indians. The expedition started in two large canoes, and the Adelentado, with an armed force, marched along the shore as far as the extreme eastern point of the island to protect the canoes from any attack by the natives. Mendez and his companions suffered terribly from exposure and thirst, and many of the Indian paddlers died—a fact which shows either that the Spaniards could endure thirst better than the Indians, or that the latter had less water to drink than the former.
The expedition finally reached Hispaniola, having formed a very low opinion of canoeing as an athletic sport. According to the original plan, Mendez was to induce Ovando to send a ship to Columbus, and Fresco was to return with the news that Mendez was at San Domingo, hard at work inducing the Governor to send the ship; but as the surviving Indian paddlers said they were satiated with paddling and did not intend to return to Jamaica, Fresco was compelled to remain in Hispaniola.
Ovando, hearing that Columbus was in Jamaica, thought he had better stay there, and instead of sending a vessel to his relief, constantly promised to do so at the earliest possible moment, and constantly took good care that no such moment should arrive.
Meanwhile the shipwrecked men were becoming very discontented. When a man has nothing to do but to think of what he is to have for dinner, and then never has it, he is reasonably sure to exhibit a fretful spirit. This was the condition of the Spaniards at Port Santa Gloria. They were living on board the wrecked vessels because they did not care to tempt the appetites of the natives by living on shore; and as the Admiral was confined to his cabin with the gout, and could not overhear them, they naturally relieved their minds by constantly abusing him, one to another.
Francesco de Porras, who had been a captain of one of the ships—and it really seems as if there were as many captains in proportion to the size of the fleet as there are in the United States navy—thought this was a favorable time for mutiny, and accordingly proceeded to mutiny. He reminded the men that Columbus was unpopular in Spain, and was forbidden to land in San Domingo. This being true, why should he ever leave Jamaica, where he had nothing to do except to lie in his cabin and enjoy the pleasures of gout? He insisted that Mendez and Fresco would never return, and that they were either drowned or had gone to Spain. In short, by lucid arguments such as these he convinced the crews that Columbus intended to keep them in Jamaica for the rest of their lives.
Having thus induced the crews to mutiny, Porras went into the Admiral’s state-room and demanded that he should instantly lead the Spaniards back to Spain. Columbus took the ground that this was an unreasonable demand, since an ocean voyage could not be successfully made without vessels; but Porras, disgusted with such heartless quibbling, rushed on deck and called on his followers to embark in canoes and start for Cadiz without a moment’s delay. His proposal was enthusiastically received, and a tumult ensued which brought the crippled Admiral on deck on his hands and knees, in the vain hope of enforcing his authority.
It was hardly to be expected that in such an attitude he could strike the mutinous sailors with awe. Indeed, the probability that they would strike him instead was so great that the Adelentado had his brother carried back to the cabin, and there stood on guard over him as coolly as if he were not at the mercy of an armed mob.
The mutineers, to the number of fifty, seized on a fleet of canoes and started for Spain by way of San Domingo. Twice they were driven back, and the second time they gave up the attempt. They then wandered through the island, robbing the natives and alleging that they were very sorry to do so, but they were acting under express orders from Columbus, and that, as disinterested friends of the noble Jamaicans, their advice was that the Admiral should be killed without delay.
Weeks and months passed by, and no word came from Mendez and Fresco. The natives, finding the Spaniards at their mercy, made a corner in provisions and refused to sell except at an exorbitant price. Thus famine began to threaten the unfortunate explorers. It was then that Columbus performed his celebrated eclipse feat. He summoned the caciques, and told them that in view of the enormity of their conduct it had been decided to withdraw the moon from heaven, and that this purpose would be carried out at the end of three days. The Admiral had, of course, looked into his Public Ledger Almanac, and had noticed that a total eclipse of the moon, visible throughout the Gulf States and the West Indies, would take place on the night in question.
When the third night came, and the eclipse began, the Indians were terribly frightened, and begged the Admiral to forgive them and give them back their beloved moon. At first he refused to listen to them, but when the eclipse reached its period of greatest obscuration he relented, and informed them that, for the sake of the young men and young women of Jamaica, to whom the moon was almost indispensable, he would give them one more chance. The natives, overwhelmed with gratitude, and determined not to lose the moon if they could help it, brought all the provisions that the Spaniards wanted.
This was the first instance of turning American celestial phenomena to practical uses; but the example of Columbus has since been followed with great success by our scientific men, who induce the government to send them at vast expense to all parts of the world, under the plausible pretext of superintending total eclipses and transits of Venus.
Mendez had been gone eight months when a small vessel entered the harbor where the shipwrecked vessels were lying. It carried Don Diego de Escobar, bearer of despatches from Ovando to Columbus. Ovando wrote promising to send a ship to rescue Columbus and his companions as soon as he could find one suitable for the purpose. Having delivered this message and received an answer, De Escobar instantly sailed away, to the immense disgust of everybody. He was not altogether a nice person, having been one of Roldan’s gang whom Bobadilla had released from prison. The Admiral could not help thinking that it was hardly delicate in Ovando to select such a messenger, but it was still a satisfaction to know that Mendez had reached San Domingo, and that in the course of a few years Ovando might find it convenient to send the promised ship.
Columbus now thought it was a good time to offer an amnesty to Porras and his companions, on condition that they would return to duty. Porras rejected the offer with disdain. He informed his men that it was only a trap set by the wily Italian to get them once more in his power. When they timidly suggested that a messenger from Ovando had really visited the Admiral, and that this looked as if negotiations were in progress for the purpose of arranging for the rescue of the expedition, Porras boldly insisted that the alleged messenger and the vessel in which he was said to have arrived had no existence. They were simply “materialized” by Columbus, who was a powerful spiritual medium, and they had already vanished into the nothingness from which they had been called.
Convinced by this able address, the mutineers decided to remain under the leadership of Porras, who immediately marched with them to attack the Admiral and to seize the stores that still remained. Don Bartholomew met them, and after a hard fight completely defeated them, taking Porras prisoner. The survivors gladly surrendered, and Columbus magnanimously forgave them.
In June, 1503, two ships arrived from San Domingo. One had been fitted out by Mendez, and the other by Ovando, who saw that Columbus would be rescued, and that he might as well earn part of the credit therefor. The Spaniards hurriedly embarked, and on the 23d of the month, after a stay of more than a year in Jamaica, they sailed for San Domingo, where they arrived after a voyage of about six weeks. Ovando professed to be exceedingly glad to meet the Admiral, and told him that for the last six or eight months he had been steadily occupied in wasting to a mere shadow, so anxious had he been to find a favorable moment for deciding upon the propriety of sending a vessel to the rescue of his distinguished friend. Columbus received his explanation with politeness, remarking “Ha!” and also “Hum!” at appropriate intervals, just to intimate that, while he did not care to argue with Ovando, he was not quite so credulous as some people imagined. The populace were disposed to overlook their bad treatment of their former Governor, inasmuch as his arrival at San Domingo was an interruption of the monotony of their life; so they cheered him when he passed through the street, and gave the old man the last glimpse of anything like popularity which he was to see.
[Æt. 67; 1503–1506]
Columbus was not anxious to remain long in the island. His business affairs were in an intricate state of confusion, and though a large sum of money was due to him, he could not collect it. The condition of the Indians filled him with grief. Under the rule of Ovando they had been constantly driven to revolt by oppression, and then mercilessly massacred, while the Spanish priests had expended a great deal of firewood and worn out several full sets of controversial implements, such as racks and thumbscrews, in converting them to Christianity. Columbus saw that his discovery of Hispaniola had led to the ruin and misery of its people, and he could not remain in any comfort amid so much suffering. Porras had already been sent as a prisoner to Spain, and on September 12th Columbus followed him. Ovando had supplied two vessels, one commanded by Columbus and the other by Don Bartholomew, but one of them was soon sent back as being unseaworthy. After a stormy voyage the ship arrived at San Lucas on November 7th, and the sick and crippled Admiral was carried to Seville, where he intended to rest before proceeding to court.
This time he was not received with any enthusiasm. He had so often returned from voyages to China without bringing with him so much as a broken tea-cup as a sample of the Celestial Kingdom, that the public had lost all interest in him. People who read in their newspapers among the list of hotel arrivals the name of Columbus, merely remarked, “So he’s back again it seems,” and then proceeded to read the criticism upon the preceding night’s bullfight. The popular feeling was, that Columbus had entirely overdone the matter of returning home from profitless explorations. There were other explorers who came back to Spain with stories much more imaginative than those which Columbus could tell, and the Spanish public had turned its attention from Prester John and the Emperor of China to the Amazonian warriors of South America and the Fountain of Youth which explorers of real enterprise were ready to discover.
Had there been any knowledge of the science of politics in Spain, Columbus would have been a person of considerable importance in his old age. The Radicals would have rallied around him, and would have denounced the atrocious manner in which a treacherous and reactionary monarchy had treated him. Columbian clubs would have been established everywhere, and he would have been made to serve as the stalking-horse of an unprincipled and reckless faction.
[Æt. 67–70; 1503–1506]
When we compare the way in which the Italian republicans have used the name and fame of Garibaldi as the most effective weapon in striking at the monarchy which has made United Italy possible, we cannot but despise the ignorance of politics shown by the Spaniards in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Columbus, though utterly worn out, was still able to write letters. He wrote to the King, to the Queen, to everybody who had any influence, asking that his honors and privileges should be restored, and hinting that he was ready to be sent back to San Domingo as Governor. No one paid any attention to him. Other men were fitting out exploring expeditions, and Columbus, with his splendid dreams and his peculiar mixture of religion and geography, was regarded as a foolish old man who had outlived his original usefulness. He was too sick to visit the court and personally explain why he had not discovered the Panama Canal, and the King, having failed to keep his own promises, was naturally not at all anxious to see him. Perhaps Isabella would have still remained faithful to her old protégé, but she was on her deathbed, and died without seeing him.
In May, 1505, Columbus managed to go to Segovia, where Ferdinand held his court. He saw the King, but got very little pleasure thereby. Ferdinand was now a widower and his own master; and his manner plainly showed Columbus that, whatever the King might promise, he never intended to keep his word and do justice to the man who had given him a new world.
[Æt. 70; 1506]
The end was now drawing near, and Columbus made a codicil to his will, expressing his last wishes. Beatrix Enriquez was still alive, though whether she too had forsaken Columbus we are not told. It is pleasant to find that the Admiral remembered her, and in the codicil to his will ordered his son Diego to see that she was properly cared for, adding, “and let this be done for the discharge of my conscience, for it weighs heavy on my soul.” He had neglected to marry Beatrix, and, unlike most men in like circumstances, the neglect burdened his conscience. This codicil was almost the last act of his busy life; and on the 20th of May, 1506, repeating the Latin words, In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum, he died with the calmness of a brave man and the peace of a Christian. He had lived seventy years, and had literally worn himself out in the service of the royal hound whose miserable little soul rejoiced when he heard that the great Italian was dead.
Columbus was buried almost as much as he was born. His first burial was in the convent of St. Francisco. Seven years later he was buried some more in the Carthusian convent in Seville. In 1536 he was carried to San Domingo and buried in the Cathedral, and afterward he was, to some extent, buried in Havana. Whether Havana or San Domingo has at present the best claim to his grave, is a disputed point.