But the ultimate Christianizing of the natives was only one of the religious motives that inspired the expedition. For many years Columbus had entertained the hope that gold might be found in quantity sufficient to enable the Spanish Government to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the possession of infidels. The project inspired him throughout his life. From these, as well as from personal motives, he was therefore particularly desirous of finding gold. Nothing is more painfully obvious in his journal than the power of this pecuniary motive. The quest for gold lured him on from one island to another, and from the sea-coast to the interior. He everywhere makes inquiries for gold, and again and again he hears reports of gold mines; but his efforts in search of them are always unsuccessful. However, he never abandons hope. The journal abounds in expression of optimistic expectation that gold in vast quantities will yet be found, and that the object of this search will yet be fully realized. But the gold-bearing mines everywhere eluded him, and indeed the natives appear to have possessed the precious metal in no more than very trifling quantities. Still, the hopes of Columbus were kept sanguine to the last. It was only ten days before the expedition sailed for home that he entered upon his journal the expression of a most sanguine expectation. Las Casas tells us that in his journal for December 26th, Columbus “adds that he hopes to find on his return from Castile a ton of gold collected by them in trading with the natives, and that they will have succeeded in discovering the mine and the spices, and all these in such abundance that before three years the king and queen may undertake the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. ‘For I have before protested to your Highnesses,’ continues Columbus, ‘that the profits of this enterprise shall be employed in the conquest of Jerusalem, at which your Highnesses smiled, and said you were pleased, and had the same inclination.’” In one of the letters of the Admiral announcing the discovery, known as the Sanchez Letter, the Admiral writes in still more sanguine terms. He says: “To sum up the whole, and state briefly the great profits of this voyage, I am able to promise the acquisition, by a trifling assistance from their Majesties, of any quantity of gold, drugs, cotton, and mastick, which last article is found only in the island of Scio; also any quantity of aloe, and as many slaves for the service of the marine as their Majesties may stand in need of.”