XXVI. dence, were gradually reconciled to his administra- CHAPTER tion, and testified their sense of its beneficent character by celebrating the anniversary of his death, for more than two centuries, with public solemnities, as a day of mourning throughout the kingdom.101 from the But far the most important of the distant acqui- Revenues sitions of Spain were those secured to her by the Indies. genius of Columbus and the enlightened patronage of Isabella. Imagination had ample range in the boundless perspective of these unknown regions; but the results actually realized from the discoveries, during the queen's life, were comparatively insignificant. In a mere financial view, they had been a considerable charge on the crown. This was, indeed, partly owing to the humanity of Isabella, who interfered, as we have seen, to prevent the compulsory exaction of Indian labor. This was subsequently, and immediately after her death indeed, carried to such an extent, that nearly half a million of ounces of gold were yearly drawn from the mines of Hispaniola alone.102 The pearl fish 101 Giannone, Istoria di Napoli, lib. 29, cap. 4; lib. 30, cap. 1, 2, 5. -Signorelli, Coltura nelle Sicilie, tom. iv. p. 84. Every one knows the persecutions, the exile, and long imprisonment, which Giannone suffered for the freedom with which he treated the clergy, in his philosophical history. The generous conduct of Charles of Bourbon to his heirs is not so well known. Soon after his accession to the throne of Naples, that prince settled a liberal pension on the son of the historian, declaring, that "it did not comport with the honor and dignity of the government, to 102 Herrera, Indias Occidentales, PART 11. eries,103 and the culture of the sugar-cane, introduced from the Canaries,104 yielded large returns under the same inhuman system. Ferdinand, who enjoyed, by the queen's testament, half the amount of the Indian revenues, was now fully awakened to their importance. It would be unjust, however, to suppose his views limited to immediate pecuniary profits; for the measures he pursued were, in many respects, well contrived to promote the nobler ends of discovery and colonization. He invited the persons most eminent for nautical science and enterprise, as Pinzon, Solis, Vespucci, to his court, where they constituted a sort of board of navigation, constructing charts, and tracing out new routes for projected voyages.' It was in his capacity of head of this department, that the last-mentioned navigator had the glory, the greatest which accident and caprice ever granted to man, of giving his name to a new hemisphere. 105 Fleets were now fitted out on a more extended scale, which might vie, indeed, with the splendid equipments of the Portuguese, whose brilliant successes in the east excited the envy of their Castilian rivals. The king occasionally took a share in the voyage, independently of the interest which of right belonged to the crown. 106 gold annually. De Rebus Oceani- 103 The pearl fisheries of Cuba- 104 Oviedo, Historia Natural de las Indias, lib. 4, cap. 8.- Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 165. 105 Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. iii. documentos 1-13. Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 7, cap. 1. 106 Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. iii. pp. 48, 134. 107 XXVI. The government, however, realized less from CHAPTER these expensive enterprises than individuals, many Spirit of of whom, enriched by their official stations, or by adventure. accidentally falling in with some hoard of treasure among the savages, returned home to excite the envy and cupidity of their countrymen. But the spirit of adventure was too high among the Castilians to require such incentive, especially when excluded from its usual field in Africa and Europe. A striking proof of the facility, with which the romantic cavaliers of that day could be directed to this new career of danger on the ocean, was given at the time of the last-meditated expedition into Italy under the Great Captain. A squadron of fifteen vessels, bound for the New World, was then riding in the Guadalquivir. Its complement was limited to one thousand two hundred men ; but, on Ferdinand's countermanding Gonsalvo's enterprise, more than three thousand volunteers, many of them of noble family, equipped with unusual magnificence for the Italian service, hastened to Seville, and pressed to be admitted into the Indian armada.108 Seville itself was in a manner depopulated by the general fever of emigration, so that it actually seemed, says a contemporary, to be tenanted only by women. 109 107 Bernardin de Santa Clara, treasurer of Hispaniola, amassed, during a few years' residence there, 96,000 ounces of gold. This same nouveau riche, used to serve gold dust, says Herrera, instead of salt, at his entertainments. (Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 7, cap. 3.) Many believed, according to the same author, that gold was so 108 Ante, Part II., Chapter 24. 109 Per esser Sevilla nel loco che è, vi vanno tanti di loro alle PART Progress of discovery. In this universal excitement, the progress of discovery was pushed forward with a success, inferior, indeed, to what might have been effected in the present state of nautical skill and science, but extraordinary for the times. The winding depths of the Gulf of Mexico were penetrated, as well as the borders of the rich but rugged isthmus, which connects the American continents. In 1512, Florida was discovered by a romantic old knight, Ponce de Leon, who, instead of the magical fountain of health, found his grave there.110 Solis, another navigator, who had charge of an expedition, projected by Ferdinand," to reach the South Sea by the circumnavigation of the continent, ran down the coast as far as the great Rio de la Plata, where he also was cut off by the savages. In 1513, Vasco Nuñez de Balboa penetrated, with a handful of men, across the narrow part of the Isthmus of Darien, and from the summit of the Cordilleras, the first of Europeans, was greeted with the longpromised vision of the southern ocean.112 most striking and least familiar of them is, that of Ferdinand de Soto, the ill-fated discoverer of the Mississippi, whose bones bleach beneath its waters. His adventures are told with uncommon spirit by Mr. Bancroft, vol. i. chap. 2, of his History of the United States. 111 Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 2, lib. 1, cap. 7. 112 The life of this daring cavalier forms one in the elegant series of national biographies by Quintana, "Vidas de Españoles Célebres," (tom. ii. pp. 1-82,) and is familiar to the English reader in Irving's "Companions of Colum XXVI. The intelligence of this event excited a sensation CHAPTER in Spain, inferior only to that caused by the discovery of America. The great object which had so long occupied the imagination of the nautical men of Europe, and formed the purpose of Columbus's last voyage, the discovery of a communication with these far western waters, was accomplished. The famous spice islands, from which the Portuguese had drawn such countless sums of wealth, were scattered over this sea; and the Castilians, after a journey of a few leagues, might launch their barks on its quiet bosom, and reach, and perhaps claim, the coveted possessions of their rivals, as falling west of the papal line of demarkation. Such were the dreams, and such the actual progress of discovery, at the close of Ferdinand's reign. the Span iards. Our admiration of the dauntless heroism displayed Excesses of by the early Spanish navigators, in their extraordinary career, is much qualified by a consideration of the cruelties with which it was tarnished; too great to be either palliated or passed over in silence by the historian. As long as Isabella lived, the Indians found an efficient friend and protector; but "her death," says the venerable Las Casas, "was the signal for their destruction." 113 Immediately on that event, the system of repartimientos, originally authorized, as we have seen, by Columbus, who seems to have had no doubt, from the first, of the bus." The third volume of Navarrete's laborious compilation, is devoted to the illustration of the minor Spanish voyagers, who followed up the bold track of discovVOL. III 60 ery, between Columbus and Cortes. 113 Las Casas, Mémoire, Eu- |