Gradually the more sensible members of the congress came to the conclusion that it would be better to agree to everything Columbus might propose, rather than listen day after day to his appalling eloquence. Still, the majority were men of ascetic lives and great physical endurance, and they showed no disposition to yield to argument or exhaustion. The sessions of the Congress were thus prolonged from day to day, and Columbus was kept in a painful state of suspense. Little did he imagine that in the land which he was destined to discover, another Congress would meet, not quite four hundred years later, and would even surpass the Congress of Salamanca in the tediousness and uselessness of its debates. CHAPTER IV. HE RECEIVES HIS COMMISSION. [Æt. 51; 1489] The spring of 1487 arrived, and the Council of Salamanca had not yet made its report. The King and Queen, who seem to have required an annual Moorish war in order to tone up their systems, set out to besiege Malaga early in the spring, taking De Talavera with them, so that he might be on hand to confess the Queen in case she should find it desirable to commit a few sins and require subsequent absolution. The departure of De Talavera interrupted the sittings of the Council, and left Columbus without any regular occupation. During the siege of Malaga he was more than once summoned to the camp, ostensibly to confer with the court upon his famous project, but the proposed conferences never took place. He became so tired of the suspense in which he was kept, that he wrote to King John of Portugal, giving him one more chance to accede to his transatlantic plans. Not only did King John answer his letter and ask him to come to Lisbon, but King Henry VII. of England also wrote to him, inviting him to come to England and talk the matter over. At least, Columbus says that those two kings wrote to him; though the fact that he did not accept their invitations, but preferred to waste his time in Spain, casts a little doubt upon his veracity. It is certainly improbable that he would have waited for years in the hope of another interview with Ferdinand and Isabella, if at the same time two prominent kings were writing to him and urging him to bring his carpet-bag and make them a nice long visit.