When, however, in the winter of 1490, it was announced that the army was to take the field again, never to leave its camp till Grenada had fallen, Columbus felt that he must make one last endeavor.  He insisted that he must have an answer regarding his plans of discovery.  The confessor of the queen, Fernando da Talavera, was commanded to obtain the definite answer of the men of learning.  Alas! it was fatal to Columbus’s hopes.  They said that it was not right that great princes should undertake such enterprises on grounds as weak as those which he relied upon.

The sovereigns themselves, however, were more favorable; so was a minority of the council of Salamanca.  And the confessor was instructed to tell him that their expenses in the war forbade them from sending him out as a discoverer, but that, when that was well over, they had hopes that they might commission him.  This was the end of five years of solicitation, in which he had put his trust in princes.  Columbus regarded the answer, as well he might, as only a courtly measure of refusal.  And he retired in disgust from the court at Seville.

He determined to lay his plans before the King of France.  He was traveling with this purpose, with his son, Diego, now a boy of ten or twelve years of age, when he arrived at night at the hospitable convent of Saint Mary of Rabida, which has been made celebrated by that incident.  It is about three miles south of what was then the seaport of Palos, one of the active ports of commercial Spain.  The convent stands on level ground high above the sea; but a steep road runs down to the shore of the ocean.  Some of its windows and corridors look out upon the ocean on the west and south, and the inmates still show the room in which Columbus used to write, and the inkstand which served his purposes while he lived there.  It is maintained as a monument of history by the Spanish government.

At the door of this convent he asked for bread and water for his boy.  The prior of the convent was named Juan Perez de Marchena.  He was attracted by the appearance of Columbus, still more by his conversation, and invited him to remain as their guest.

When he learned that his new friend was about to offer to France the advantages of a discovery so great as that proposed, he begged him to make one effort more at home.  He sent for some friends, Fernandos, a physician at Palos, and for the brothers Pinzon, who now appear for the first time in a story where their part is distinguished.  Together they all persuaded Columbus to send one messenger more to wait upon their sovereigns.  The man sent was Rodriguez, a pilot of Lepe, who found access to the queen because Juan Perez, the prior, had formerly been her confessor.  She had confidence in him, as she had, indeed, in Columbus.  And in fourteen days the friendly pilot came back from Santa Fe with a kind letter from the queen to her friend, bidding him return at once to court.  Perez de Marchena saddled his mule at once and before midnight was on his way to see his royal mistress.