The evidence in regard to an application to Venice, though less positive in its nature, is also inconclusive. The Venetian historian Carlo Antonio Marin, whose history of Venetian commerce was not published till the year 1800, was the first to give currency to the story. His authority is this. He says that Francesco Pesaro said to him some ten or twelve years before,--that is, about 1780,--that in making some researches in the archives of the Council of Ten, he had seen and read a letter of Columbus making application to the Venetian Government for assistance. But although diligent search has since been made at two different times throughout the archives for the years between 1470 and 1492, no trace of such a letter has ever been found. It is possible that this important document may have been destroyed when, just before the preliminaries of Leoben, in May, 1797, a mob invaded the hall of the Council of Ten and dispersed such of the papers as could be found. But until some further evidence comes to light, it must be considered doubtful whether application to Venice was ever made. In regard to applications to Portugal, England, and France, the evidence is less incomplete, though here, too, we meet with not a few conflicting statements. In one of his letters to the Spanish sovereigns Columbus says: “For twenty-seven years I had been trying to get recognition, but at the end of that period all my projects were turned to ridicule.... But notwithstanding this fact,” he continues, “I pressed on with zeal, and responded to France, Portugal, and England that I reserved for the king and queen those countries and those domains.” Elsewhere he says: “In order to serve your Highnesses, I listened to neither England nor Portugal nor France, whose princes wrote me letters which your Highnesses can see in the hands of Dr. Villalono.” There is another bit of evidence on this subject that is not less interesting. On the 19th of March, 1493, Duke of Medina Celi wrote to Cardinal de Mendoza asking that he might be permitted to send vessels every year to trade in America, and urging as a reason for this special favor the fact that he had prevented Columbus from going to the service of France and had held him to the service of Spain, at a time when he had opportunities for going elsewhere. But as if to prevent us from being too confident that we have arrived at the exact truth, Columbus in another of his letters gives us a statement which, if it stood alone, would seem to prove that John II. not only made no offer, but stubbornly refused all assistance. He says: “The king of Portugal refused with blindness to second me in my projects of maritime discovery, for God closed his eyes, ears, and all his senses, so that in fourteen years I was not able to make him listen to what I advanced.”