2.  This was doubtless the most important event that ever happened on our globe, one half of which had been hitherto strangers to the other.  Whatever had been esteemed most great or noble before, seemed absorbed in this kind of new creation.  We still mention, with respectful admiration, the names of the Argonauts, who did not perform the hundredth part of what was done by the sailors under Gama and Albuquerque.  How many altars would have been raised by the ancients to a Greek who had discovered America! and yet Bartholomew and Christopher Columbus were not thus rewarded.

3.  Columbus, struck with the wonderful expeditions of the Portuguese, imagined that something greater might be done; and from a bare inspection of the map of our world, concluded that there must be another which might be found by sailing always west.  He had courage equal to his genius, or indeed superior, seeing he had to struggle with the prejudices of his cotemporaries, and the repulses of several princes to whom he had tendered his services.

4.  Genoa, which was his native country, treated his schemes as visionary, and by that means lost the only opportunity that could have offered of aggrandizing her power.  Henry VII. king of England, who was too greedy of money, to hazard any on this noble attempt, would not listen to the proposals made by Columbus’s brother; and Columbus himself was rejected by John II. of Portugal, whose attention was wholly employed upon the coast of Africa.  He had no prospect of success in applying to the French, whose marine lay totally neglected, and their affairs more confused than ever, daring the Minority of Charles VIII.  The emperor Maximilian, had neither ports for shipping, money to fit out a fleet, nor sufficient courage to engage in a scheme of this nature.  The Venetians, indeed, might have undertaken it; but whether the natural aversion of the Genoese to these people, would not suffer Columbus to apply to the rivals of his country, or that the Venetians had no idea of any thing more important than the trade they carried on from Alexandria and in the Levant, Columbus at length fixed all his hopes on the court of Spain.

5.  Ferdinand, king of Arragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile, had by their marriage united all Spain under one dominion, excepting only the kingdom of Granada, which was still in the possession of the Moors; but which Ferdinand soon after took from them.  The union of these two princes had prepared the way for the greatness of Spain, which was afterwards begun by Columbus; he was however obliged to undergo eight years of incessant application, before Isabella’s court would consent to accept of the inestimable benefit this great man offered it.  The bane of all great objects is the want of money.  The Spanish court was poor; and the prior, Perez, and two merchants, named Pinzono, were obliged to advance seventeen thousand ducats towards fitting out the armament.  Columbus procured a patent from the court, and at length set sail from the port of Palos, in Andalusia, with three ships, on August 23, in the year 1492.