by Edmund Burke
If the courts had made such poor advances in policy and in politeness, which might seem the natural growth of courts at any time, both the courts and the people were yet less advanced in useful knowledge. The little learning which then subsisted, was only the dotage of the scholastick philosophy of words; together with the infancy of politer learning, which only concerned words too, tho’ in another way. The elegance and purity of the Latin tongue was then the highest, and almost the only point of a scholar’s ambition. Mathematical learning was little valued or cultivated. The true system of the heavens was not dreamed of. There was no knowledge at all of the real form of the earth; and in general the ideas of mankind were not extended beyond their sensible horizon.
In this state of affairs Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa, undertook to extend the boundaries which ignorance had given to the world. This man’s design arose from the just idea he had formed of the figure of the earth; though the maps, more erroneous than his conjectures, made him mistake the object. His design was to find a passage to China and India by the Western ocean. It is not improbable, that besides the glory attending such a discovery, and the private advantages of fortune he might propose to derive from it, Columbus had a further incentive from national jealousy and resentment. Venice and Genoa were then almost the only trading powers in Europe; and they had no other support of their power but their commerce. This bred a rivalship, a jealousy, and frequent wars between them; but in traffick Venice was much superior; she had drawn to herself almost the whole commerce of India, always one of the most valuable in the world, and then carried on only by the way of Egypt and the Red Sea. An emulation of this kind might probably have put Columbus on finding another and more direct passage to the East-Indies, and by that means transferring this profitable trade to his own country. But neither that which he sought, nor that which he found, was destined for his country. However, he performed the duty of a good citizen, and made his first proposal at home; at home it was rejected Discharged of this obligation, he applied to the court of France, and meeting no better success there, he offered next his services to our Henry the seventh. This prince was rather a prudent steward and manager of a kingdom than a great king, and one of those defensive geniuses who are the last in the world to relish a great but problematical design. It is therefore no wonder that his brother, whom Columbus had employed to sollicit in England, after several years spent here, had little success in his negotiation. But in Portugal, where he applied himself after his failure here, his offers were not only rejected, but he was insulted and ridiculed; he found, however, in these insults, and this ridicule, a new incitement to pursue his scheme, urged forward by the stings of anger and resentment.
Last of all he exercised his interest and his patience for eight years together at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. There is a sort of enthusiasm in all projectors, absolutely necessary for their affairs, which makes them proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most shocking insults; and what is severer than all, the presumptuous judgments of the ignorant upon their designs. Columbus had a sufficient share of this quality. He had every day, during this long space, to combat with every objection that want of knowledge, or that a false knowledge could propose. Some held that the known world, which they thought was all that could be known, floated like a vast scum upon the ocean; that the ocean itself was infinite. Others, who entertained more just notions, and believed that the whole of the earth and waters composed one vast globe, drew a consequence from it as absurd as the former opinion. For they argued, that if Columbus should sail beyond a certain point, the convexity of this globe would prevent his return. As is usual in such cafes, every one abounded with objections. His whole time was spent in fruitless endeavours to enlighten ignorance, to remove prejudice, and to vanquish that obstinate incredulity, which is of all others the greatest enemy to improvement, rejecting every thing as false and absurd, which is ever so little out of the track of common experience; and it is of the more dangerous consequence, as it carries a delusive air of coolness, of temper and wisdom. With all this he had yet greater difficulties from the interests of mankind, than from their malignity and ignorance. The expence of the undertaking, inconsiderable as this expence was, was at the bottom the chief support of the other objections, and had more weight than all the rest together. However, with an assiduity and firmness of mind, never enough to be admired and applauded, he at length overcame all difficulties; and, to his inexpressible joy, with a fleets of three ships, and the title and command of an admiral, set sail on the third of August, 1492, on a voyage the most daring and grand in the design, and in the event of which the world was the most concerned of any that ever yet was undertaken.
It must not be omitted here, in honour to the sex, and in justice to Isabella, that this scheme was first countenanced, and the equipment made by the queen only; the king had no share in it; she even raised the money necessary for the design upon her own jewels.
I do not propose to relate all the particulars of Columbus’s voyage in a track now so well known, and so much frequented; but then there was no chart to direct him, no lights from former navigators, no experience of the winds and currents peculiar to those seas. He had no guide but his own genius, nor any thing to comfort and appease his companions, discouraged and mutinous with the length and hopelessness of the voyage, but some indications which he drew from the casual appearances of land birds, and floating sea-weeds, most of them little to be depended upon, but which this wise commander, well acquainted with the human heart, always knew how to turn to the best advantage. It was in this expedition that the variation of the compass was first observed; an appearance which has ever since puzzled all philosophers, and which at this time made a great impression upon Columbus’s pilots; when in an unknown and boundless ocean, far from the road of all former navigation, nature itself seemed altered, and the only guide they had left, appeared to be upon the point of forsaking them. But Columbus, with a wonderful quickness and sagacity, pretended to discover a physical cause for this appearance, which, though it did not satisfy himself, was plausible enough to remove something of the terror of his mariners. Expedients of this kind were daily wanting, and the fertile genius of this discoverer invented them daily. At last by use they began to lose their effect; the crew insisted on his returning, and grew loud and insolent in their demand. They even talked of throwing him overboard. Even his own invention, and almost his hopes were near exhausted, when the only thing which could appease them happened, the clear discovery of land, after a voyage of thirty-three days, the longest ever any man was known to be from sight of shore before that time.
They landed on one of the islands now called Lucayos, or Bahamas, which is remarkable for nothing but this event, and here it was, that the two worlds, if I may use the expression, were first introduced to one another; a meeting of an extraordinary nature, and which produced great changes in both. The first thing Columbus did, after thanking God for the success of his important voyage, was to take possession of the island in the name of their Catholick majesties, by setting up a cross upon the shore; great multitudes of the inhabitants looking on, ignorant and unconcerned at a ceremony which was to deprive them of natural liberty. The stay of the Spaniards in this island was but short; they found from the extreme poverty of the people, that this was by no means the Indies, which they sought for.
Columbus at his departure very prudently took with him some of the natives, that they might learn the Spanish tongue, and be his guides and interpreters in this new scene of affairs; nor were they unwilling to accompany him. He touched on several of the islands in the same cluster, enquiring every where for gold, which was the only object of commerce he thought worth his care, because the only thing that could give the court of Spain an high opinion of his discoveries. All directed him to a great island called Bohio, of which they spoke extraordinary things, and principally that it abounded in gold. They told him it lay to the Southward: to the Southward he ste
ered his course, and found the island, which he called Hispaniola, no ways inferior to the reports; commodious harbours, an agreeable climate, a good soil, and, what was of most consequence, a country that promised from some samples a great abundance of gold; inhahited by an humane and hospitable people, in a state of simplicity fit to be worked upon. These circumstances determined Columbus to make this island the center of his designs, to plant a colony there, and to establish things in some permanent order before he proceeded to further discoveries. But to carry his designs of a settlement here, and his schemes of future discoveries into execution, it was necessary that he should return to Spain and equip himself with a proper force. He had now collected a sufficient quantity of gold to give credit to his voyage at court, and such a number of curiosities of all kinds as might strike the imaginations, and engage the attention of the people. Before he parted, he took care to secure the friendship of the principal king of the island by caresses and presents, and under pretence of leaving him a force sufficient to assist him against his enemies, he laid the ground-work of a colony. He built a fort, and put a small garrison of Spaniards into it, with such directions for their conduct as might ensure their safety and the good offices of the inhabitants, if the men had not been of that kind, who are incapable of acting prudently either from their own or other people’s wisdom. He did every thing to gain the esteem of the natives, by the justice, and even generosity of his dealings, and the politeness and humanity with which he behaved upon every occasion. He shewed them too, that though it was not in his will, it was not the less in his power to do them mischief, if they acted so as to force him upon harsher measures. The surprizing effects of his cannon, and the sharpness of the Spanish swords, of which he made an innocent ostentation, convinced them of this.
When the Spaniards first arrived in that country, they were taken for men come from heaven; and it was no wonder, considering the extreme novelty of their appearance, and the prodigious superiority they had in every respect over a people in all the nakedness of mere nature. Whatever therefore the Indians got from them, they valued in an high degree, not only as curious and useful, but even as things sacred; and the persons of the Spaniards were respected in the same light. Columbus, who knew the value of opinion, did all he could to keep them in their error; and indeed no action of his, either of weakness or cruelty, could furnish matter to undeceive them. For which reason, on his departure, he left the people with the best inclinations imaginable to nurse his infant colony. And when he desired some of the inhabitants to carry into Spain, he was more at a loss whom he should accept, than how he should prevail upon them to go.
CHAP. II.
ON his return homewards, still attentive to his design, he aimed at such discoveries as could be prosecuted without deviating considerably from his course. He touched upon several islands to the Southward, and discovered the Caribbees, of the barbarity of whose inhabitants he had heard terrible accounts in Hispaniola. He had before landed upon Cuba in his passage from the Bahamas. So that in this his first voyage, he gained a general knowledge of all the islands, which lie in such an astonishing number in that great sea which divides North and South America. But hitherto he neither knew nor suspected any continent between him and China.
He returned to Europe after an absence of above six months, and was driven by a great storm into the harbour of Lisbon. This he did not look upon as a misfortune; since here, he had the satisfaction of convincing the Portuguese demonstratively of what an error they were guilty in rejecting his proposals. It was now his turn to triumph. Those who want sagacity to discern the advantages of an offer, when it is made to themselves, and treat it with the greatest scorn, are always most stung with envy when they actually see these advantages in the hands of another. The Portuguese had some time before this begun to make a figure: their ships had coasted Africa for a greater length than any had done before them, which opened to them a profitable trade to Guinea. This gave them a reputation. They considered discovery as their proper province; and they were enraged to see that the Castilians were now let into the same path, in consequence of an offer which they had rejected. Some proposed to murder the admiral; but all were agreed to treat him in the most unworthy manner. However, their design of insulting him gave Columbus an opportunity at once of gratifying his resentment, maintaining his own dignity, and asserting the honour of the flag of Castile. He sent to the king at his first entering the harbour, to desire a liberty to come up to Lisbon and refresh, as he had his master’s orders not to avoid his ports; adding, that he was not from Guinea, but the Indies. An officer of the king of Portugal came aboard him with an armed force, and ordered him to come ashore, and give an account of himself to the king’s officers. Columbus told him he had the honour of serving the king of Castile, and would own himself accountable to no other. The Portuguese then desired him to send the master of his ship; this he likewise refused, saying, that the admirals of Castile always chose rather to die than deliver up themselves, or even the meanest of their men; and if violence was intended, he was prepared to meet force with force. A spirited behaviour, in almost any circumstance of strength, is the most politick as well as the most honourable course; we preserve a respect at least by it, and with that we generally preserve every thing; but when we lose respect, every thing is lost. We invite rather than suffer insults, and the first is the only one we can resist with prudence. Columbus found this; the officer did not pursue his demands; the admiral had all the refreshments he wanted; and was even received at court with particular marks of distinction.
From Lisbon he proceeded to Seville; the court was then at Barcelona. But before he went to give an account of his voyage, he took all the care he could to provide for another. He wrote an abstract of his proceedings, and sent with it a memorial of all such things as were necessary for the establishment of a colony, and for further discoveries; soon after he began his journey to Barcelona, every where followed by the admiration and applauses of the people, who crowded to see him from all parts. He entered the city in a sort of triumph; there never was a more innocent triumph, nor one that formed a more new and pleasing spectacle. He had not destroyed, but discovered nations. The Americans he had brought with him appeared in all the uncouth finery of their own country, wonder’d at by every body, and themselves admiring every thing they saw. The several animals, many highly beautiful, and all strangers to this part of the world, were so disposed as to be seen without difficulty; the other curiosities of the new world were displayed in the most advantageous manner; the utensils, the arms, and the ornaments of a people so remote from us in situation and manners; some valuable for the materials; even the rudeness of the workmanship in many made them the more curious, when it was considered by whom, and with what instruments they were wrought. The gold was not forgot. The admiral himself closed the procession. He was received by the king and queen with all imaginable marks of esteem and regard, and they ordered a magnificent throne to be erected in publick to do him the greater honour. A chair was prepared for him, in which he sat, and gave in presence of the whole court a full and circumstantial account of all his discoveries, with that composedness and gravity, which is so extremely agreeable to the Spanish humour, and with the modesty of a man who knows he has done things which do not need to be proclaimed by himself. The successful merit of Columbus was now understood by every body, and when the king and queen led the way, all the grandees and nobility of the court vied with each other in their civilities and caresses.
These honours did not satisfy Columbus. He prepared with all expedition for a second voyage. The difficulties attending the first were all vanished. The importance of the object appeared every day more clearly, and the court was willing to second the vivacity of his desires to the full. But before his departure there was one thing which they judged wanting to give them a clear and unquestionable right to the countries, which should be discovered. This was a grant of them from the pope. The Portuguese some time before had a grant of such lands as they should di
scover within certain latitudes; and this grant made a similar one to the Spaniards more necessary. The pope accordingly gave a very ample bull in their favour, very liberally conceding countries, of which he was so far from having any possession, that he had no knowledge of them. The limits of this grant was a line drawn from pole to pole, an hundred leagues to the Westward of the Azores; on the other side no bounds at all were set. This was afterwards a subject of much controversy between the crowns of Spain and Portugal, the latter having got a grant of all that should be discovered to the East, as the former had of all to the Westward; those who drew the bulls not having known enough of the figure of the earth to see, that these grants must necessarily clash with one another: and the powers which desired them, were perhaps not sorry to find their pretensions such as they might extend or contract at pleasure.
Whatever the validity of this ample grant might be, Columbus was made governor with the highest authority over all that it contained. But he had somewhat with him more material for his possession than any charters; this was a fleet of seventeen sail of ships, with all manner of necessaries for settlement or conquest, and fifteen hundred men on board, some of them of the best families in Spain. With this fleet he set sail on his second voyage the 25th of September, 1493. He gave each of the captains instructions for their course sealed, with orders not to open them, unless in distress, and separated from the fleet, that he might create such an absolute dependence of all upon himself as should preserve an uniformity in their designs. On the second of November they made land, which is the island now called Dominica. But his design was first to settle his colony before he attempted any new discovery, therefore he made no stay here, nor at several other islands at which he touched before he could make Hispaniola.