The True Story of Christopher Columbus, Called the Great AdmiralBrooks, Elbridge S. (Elbridge Streeter)
History
The True Story of Christopher Columbus, Called the Great Admiral
Brooks, Elbridge S. (Elbridge Streeter)
Columbus, Christopher, 1451-1506 -- Juvenile literature; Explorers -- Juvenile literature
At last the long-delayed help was sent by Governor Ovando, and one day
the brave Diego Mendez came sailing into Sir Christopher's Cove. And
Columbus forgave the rebels who had run away; and on the twenty-eighth
of June, 1504, they all sailed away from the place, that, for a year
past, had been almost worse than a prison to them all.
On the fifteenth of August, the rescued crews sailed into the harbor of
Santo Domingo. The governor, Ovando, who had reluctantly agreed to send
for Columbus, was now in a hurry to get him away. Whether the governor
was afraid of him, or ashamed because of the way he had treated him, or
whether he felt that Columbus was no longer held so high in Spain, and
that, therefore, it was not wise to make much of him, I cannot say. At
any rate he hurried him off to Spain, and on the twelfth of September,
1504, Columbus turned his back forever on the new world he had
discovered, and with two ships sailed for Spain.
He had not been at sea but a day or two before he found that the ship
in which he and the boy Ferdinand were sailing was not good for much. A
sudden storm carried away its mast and the vessel was sent back to Santo
Domingo. Columbus and Ferdinand, with a few of the men, went on board
the other ship which was commanded by Bartholomew Columbus, the
brother of the Admiral, who had been with him all through the dreadful
expedition. At last they saw the home shores again, and on the seventh
of November, 1504, Columbus sailed into the harbor of San Lucar, not far
from Cadiz.
He had been away from Spain for fully two years and a half. He had
not accomplished a single thing he set out to do. He had met with
disappointment and disaster over and over again, and had left the four
ships that had been given him a total wreck upon the shores of Jamaica.
He came back poor, unsuccessful, unnoticed, and so ill that he could
scarcely get ashore.
And so the fourth voyage of the great Admiral ended. It was his last.
His long sickness had almost made him crazy. He said and did many odd
things, such as make us think, nowadays, that people have, as we call
it, "lost their minds." But he was certain of one thing--the king and
queen of Spain had not kept the promises they had made him, and he was
determined, if he lived, to have justice done him, and to make them do
as they said they would.
They had told him that only himself or one of his family should be
Admiral of the Ocean Seas and Viceroy of the New Lands; they had sent
across the water others, who were not of his family, to govern what he
had been promised for his own. They had told him that he should have a
certain share of the profits that came from trading and gold hunting in
the Indies; they had not kept this promise either, and he was poor when
he was certain he ought to be rich.
So, when he was on land once more, he tried hard to get to court and see
the king and queen. But he was too sick.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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