his discovering the continent of South America in 1197, but we have no evidence that any such pretension had been so asserted. The accounts of such a voyage, purporting to have been written to Lorenzo de Pier Francisco de Medici of Florence, and to others, remained unpublished till after the death of Columbus.* It was not until May 1505, that Columbus was able, in company with his brother Bartholomew, to accomplish his journey to court, which was at that time held at Segovia. Many months were exhausted by him in unavailing attendance. Life was now drawing to a close. He was again confined to the bed, by a tormenting attack of the gout, aggravated by sorrow and disappointment. One of his last acts was to send his brother to King Philip and Queen Juana, who had just arrived from Flanders to take possession of the throne of Castile; in the daughter of Isabella, he trusted to find a patroness and friend. After the departure of Bartholomew, his maladies increased in violence. He died on the 20th of May 1506, being seventy years old, a little more or less. His last words were "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum" into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit !† His body was deposited in the convent of St. Francisco, but was transported in 1513 to the Carthusian monastery of Las Cuevas of Seville to the chapel of St. Ann, or of Santo Christo, in which chapel was likewise deposited that of his son Diego who died *Irving's Columbus, vol. 2, p. 249, Appendix No. 10. in the village of Montalban on the 23d of February 1526. In 1536 the bodies of both were removed to Hispaniola and interred in the principal chapel of the cathedral of the City of San Domingo. More than two centuries afterwards, when by the treaty of 1795 between France and Spain, all the Spanish possessions in the island of Hispaniola were ceded to France, the remains of Columbus were carried to Havana and deposited with great reverence, in the cathedral, in the wall on the right side of the grand altar.* About the same period the new world gave birth to an historian who has by his writings perpetuated the fame of Columbus, and erected to his memory a monument far more lasting than that ordered by Ferdinand. This chapter cannot be better concluded than with the following beautiful tribute from Mr. Irving:† "Columbus was a man of great and inventive genius. The operations of his mind were energetic but irregular; bursting forth at times with that irresistible force which characterizes intellects of such an order. His mind had grasped all kinds of knowledge connected with his pursuits; and though his information may appear limited at the present day, and some of his errors palpable, it is because that knowledge, in his peculiar department of science, was but scantily developed in his time. His own. discoveries enlightened the ignorance of that age; guided conjecture to certainty; and dispelled numerous errors with which he himself had been obliged to struggle. * Irving's Columbus, vol. 2, p. 198; also p. 209 to 212, Appendix No. 1. "His ambition was lofty and noble. He was full of high thoughts, and anxious to distinguish himself by great achievements. It has been said that a mercenary feeling mingled with his views, and that his stipulations with the Spanish court were selfish and avaracious. The charge is inconsiderate and unjust. He aimed at dignity and wealth in the same lofty spirit in which he sought renown; but they were to arise from the territories he should discover, and be commensurate in importance. No condition could be more just. He asked nothing of the sovereigns but a command of the countries he hoped to give them, and a share of the profits to support the dignity of his command. If there should be no country discovered, his stipulated viceroyalty would be of no avail; and if no revenues should be produced, his labour and peril would produce no gain. If his command and revenues ultimately proved magnificent, it was from the magnificence of the regions he had attached to the Castilian crown. What monarch would not rejoice to gain empire on such conditions? "But he did not merely risk a loss of labour and a disappointment of ambition in the enterprise: on his motives being questioned, he voluntarily undertook, and, with the assistance of his coadjutors, actually defrayed one eighth of the whole charge of the first expedition. "The gains that promised to arise from his discoveries were intended to be appropriated in the same princely spirit in which they were demanded. He contemplated works and achievements of benevolence and piety; vast contributions for the relief of the poor of his native city; the foundation of churches where masses should be said for the souls of the departed; and armies for the recovery of the holy sepulchre in Palestine. "In the discharge of his office he maintained the state and ceremonial of a viceroy, and was tenacious of his rank and privileges: not from a mere vulgar love of titles, but because he prized them as testimonials and trophies of his achievements. These he jealously cherished as his great rewards. In his repeated applications to the king, he insisted merely on the restitution of his dignities. As to his pecuniary dues and all questions relative to mere revenue, he offered to leave them to arbitration, or even to the absolute disposition of the king; but not so his official dignities; "these things," said he nobly, "affect my honour." In his testament, he enjoined on his son Diego, and whoever after him should inherit his estates, whatever dignities and titles might afterwards be granted by the king, always to sign himself simply The Admiral,' by way of perpetuating in the family its real source of greatness. "His conduct as a discoverer was characterized by the grandeur of his views, and the magnanimity of his spirit. Instead of scouring the newly found countries, like a grasping adventurer eager only for immediate gain, as was too generally the case with contemporary discoverers, he sought to ascertain their soil and productions, their rivers and harbours. He was desirous of colonizing and cultivating them, of conciliating and civilizing the natives, of building cities, introducing the useful arts, subjecting every thing to the control of law, order and religion, and thus of founding regular and prosperous empires. In this glorious plan, he was constantly defeated by the dissolute rabble which it was his misfortune to command; with whom all law was tyranny, and all order restraint. They interrupted all useful works by their seditions; provoked the peaceful Indians to hostility; and after they had thus drawn down misery and warfare upon their own heads, and overwhelmed Columbus with the ruins of the edifice he was building, they charged him with being the cause of the confusion. "Well would it have been for Spain, had her discoverers who followed in the track of Columbus possessed his sound policy and liberal views. The new world, in such case, would have been settled by peaceful colonists, and civilized by enlightened legislators, instead of being overrun by desperate adventurers, and desolated by avaricious conquerors. "Columbus was a man of quick sensibility, liable to great excitement, to sudden and strong impressions, and powerful impulses. He was naturally irritable and impetuous, and keenly sensible to injury or injustice; yet the quickness of his temper was counteracted by the benevolence and generosity of his heart. The magnanimity of his nature shone forth through all the troubles of his stormy career. Though continually outraged in his dignity, and braved in the exercise of his command; though foiled in his plans, and endangered in his person by the seditions of turbulent and worthless men; and that too at times when suffering under anxiety of mind and anguish of body, sufficient to exasperate the most patient; yet he restrained his valiant and indignant spirit; and by the strong power of his mind, brought himself to forbear, and reason, and even to supplicate: nor should we fail to notice how free he was from all feeling of revenge; how ready to forgive and forget, on the least signs of repentance and atonement. He has been extolled for his skill in controlling others, but far greater praise is due to him for the firmness he displayed in governing himself. "His natural benignity made him accessible to all kinds of pleasurable influences from external objects. In his letters and journals, instead of detailing circumstances with the technical precision of a mere navigator, he notices the beauties of nature with the enthusiasm of a poet or a painter. As he coasts the shores of the New World, the reader participates in the enjoyment with which he describes, in his imperfect but picturesque Spanish, the varied objects around him; the blandness of the temperature, the purity of the atmosphere, the fragrance of the air, full of dew and sweetness,' the verdure of the forests, the magnificence of |