The letter was written, and in two weeks’ time Rodriguez brought back an answer summoning the Prior to court. The good old man was overjoyed, and immediately went to Santa Fé, where the King and Queen were stopping, on their way to another Moorish war. When he was admitted to the Queen’s presence, he conducted himself with so much discretion, and made so favorable an impression, that Isabella gave him the magnificent sum of twenty thousand maravedies, and told him to hand it over to Columbus, and to send that persistent navigator immediately to her. It is somewhat of a disappointment to learn that the twenty thousand maravedies were in reality worth only seventy-two dollars; still they were enough to enable Columbus to buy a mule and a new spring overcoat, and thus to appear at court in an impressive manner. The particular Moorish war upon which the King and Queen were then engaged was the very last one of the series, and it was confessedly of so much importance that Columbus did not try to obtain an audience until it was finished. In the mean time he lived with his old friend Alonzo de Quintanella, the treasurer. [Æt. 55–56; 1491–92] At last the day came when, the war being ended, Columbus was summoned to meet a committee of which De Talavera appears to have been the chairman. This time the feasibility of his scheme was admitted, and it only remained to settle the terms upon which he would agree to furnish Spain with new continents. Though Columbus expected to reach the eastern coast of Asia by crossing the Atlantic, that part of Asia was so wholly unknown to Europeans, that its discovery by means of a transatlantic voyage would have enabled the discoverer to take possession of it as a new continent; and it was hence quite proper for Columbus to speak of discovering a new world when he was really intending to discover the eastern half of what we now call the Old world. It is all very well to have a good opinion of one’s self, but Columbus really did put what seems to unprejudiced people a tremendous price upon his services. Not only did he demand one tenth of whatever profits might be derived from his discoveries, but he insisted that he should be made an admiral, and viceroy over every country that he might discover. One of the committee justly remarked that the proposed arrangement was one by which Columbus had everything to gain and nothing to lose, and that if he made no discoveries whatever he would still be a Spanish admiral, and would outrank scores of deserving officers who had spent their lives in the service of their country. Columbus thereupon modified his terms by consenting to take only an eighth of the profits, and to furnish one eighth of the expenses.