Doubtless the good friar found his convent life rather monotonous, and perceiving vast possibilities of conversation in Columbus, he determined to ask him to spend the night with him. Columbus, of course, accepted the invitation, and, the Prior sending for the village doctor, the three spent a delightful evening. The next day both the Prior and the doctor agreed that Columbus was really a remarkable man, and that it would be disgraceful if the French king were to be allowed to assist in discovering a new continent. The Prior sent for several ancient mariners residing in the neighboring port of Palos, and requested them to give their opinion of the matter. With one accord, they supported the scheme of Columbus with arguments the profundity of which Captain Bunsby himself might have envied; and one Martin Alonzo Pinzon, in particular, was so enthusiastic that he offered to pay the expenses of Columbus while making another application to the court, and to furnish and take command of a vessel in case the application should be successful. [Æt. 55; 1491–92] The religious interests of the convent must have suffered somewhat from the Prior’s geographical soirées. It must have required a great deal of punch to bring those ancient seafaring men into unanimity upon any subject, and the extent to which Columbus unquestionably availed himself of the opportunity for unrestrained conversation must have left the Prior no time whatever for prayers. He may have excused himself to his own conscience by pretending that to listen to Columbus was a means of mortifying the flesh; but, plausible as this excuse was, it could not justify the introduction of punch, seafaring men, and village doctors into a professedly religious house. The upshot of the matter was, that the Prior resolved to write a letter to the Queen, and old Sebastian Rodriguez, a veteran sailor, staked the future integrity of his personal eyes upon his delivery of the letter into the hands of Isabella. The Prior had been formerly the Queen’s confessor, and of course he knew how to awaken her interest by little allusions to the sinful secrets that she had committed to his holy keeping.