The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-07-20
TO FoRESTALL COLUMBUS.
A Royal Attempt to Cheat the Great Dis.

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A Royal Attempt to Cheat the Great Dis
coverer.
Had Columbus persistently held out
to him the promise of immense domin.
ions, fabulous wealth, and far-reaching
empire, Dom john might have yielded
to the potent fascination. But the
sailor demanded two things, both in
compatible with the policy of Dom
John-a policy in thorough accord with
his nature and his life; he claimed a
rich return, which was not tasteful to
the covetous king, and great power and
authority, incompatible with the royal
prerogative, which had risen to supreme
dominion and had become an article of
faith to be accepted of all men. 1t was
impossible to induce Dom John, who
had stripped the Lusitanian mobiles of a
large part of their revenues, to consent
to another's sharing in the profits of
the territories to be discovered, and even
more impossible to win from him rec
ognition Of such perpetual governor
ship as Columbus asked; a copartner-
ship, as it were, with himself, who at
such cost and by such stern means had
set himself upon the backs of his mobiles
after a struggle so bitter that he had
perforce sought aid in it from the in
ternal powers of crime, to insure the
unity, the integrity, and the totality of
his monarchy.
The indispensable acceptance of the
preliminary and preparatory scheme was
therefore frustrated by the same causes
that SO nearly defeated it afterward,
namely, the excessive claims of COM
mand and tribute for himself put for
ward by the same discoverer. The
king appointed commission to look
into the matter; and this commission
rendered an opinion in perfect conson-
ance with Lusitanian precedents, which
were all in favor of seeking southern
Africa and the East Indies by shaping
longer courses toward the south. Two
learned doctors, Maestro Joseph and
Maestro Rodrigues, jointly with the
two prelates Of Ceuta and Viseu, were
the members of the commission which
was charged with that most difficultin-
vestigation.
But Dom John could not have been
satisfied with the adverse report of the
wiseacres, for he called together the
high council of the crown. This body,
essentially political, composed in greater
part of those jurists to whom the science
and knowledge of the Roman law sug-
gested the modern idea of absolute
power and the creation of powerful
states, set aside the purely scientific
views of the commission of technical
cosmographers, and laid stress upon the
pretensions to authority and revenue
advanced by Columbus, deeming them
in conflict with the supreme rights of
the monarchy and the absolute power
of the monarch. In truth, the tech
nical junta and the political council as
signed the two motives of refusal-the
usual course of the Portuguese voyages
and discoveries, and the recently es-
tablished principle of monarchicalunity
One report opposed the project itself,
the other opposed the reward demanded
by Columbus And now arose the de-
sign in the mind of Dom John to APP
propriate the Columbian achievement
and to get rid of Columbus.
By the detailed explanations of the |
project, by his frequent conferences
with the discoverer, by the consulta-
tions held with the wisest men of the |
century, by the data collected for draw
ing up the report, Dom John had learned |
all that it was possible for him to learn;
and he straightway put it into practice. |
lie summoned the most expert among |
the Portuguese pilots, Pero Vazquez,
the school-fellow of Dom Henry, and in |
stealth and silence, with all secrecy and |
caution, sent him, under pretense of |
provisioning the Cape Verde islands, to
follow the course mapped by Columbus
Then was it clearly apparent that me-
chanical and superficial knowledge,
mere calculation, the soldiers watch
word and the kings command, could
not take the place of the effort, the
zeal, the research, the reasoning, and
above all, the sorrows of true genius.
The merely mechanical pilot was terri
fed when he became entangled in the sea
of floating sargasso, whose rank growth
chung to the keels and checked his pro-
gress; he was more terrified when
struck by tempest and hurricane, and
yet more on sailing and sailing, day
after day, without sighting land; and in
MS terror he put about, steering home
ward to Portugal, and excusing his
failure by exaggerating the peril. The
secret became known. AS soon as Col
lmbus knew of it, his indignation, only
in intensity to his protracted
and the long trial of his
patience, moved him to rebel and quit
Portugal. -Emilio CASTELAR,, in Century.