Who hath afflicted thee so much, and so many times, God, or the world?  The privileges and promises which God hath made to thee He hath never broken,[23] neither hath He said, after having received thy services, that His meaning was different, and to be understood in a different sense.  He fulfils all that He promises, and with increase.  Such is His custom.  I have shown thee what thy Creator hath done for thee, and what He doeth for all.  The present is the reward of the toils and perils thou hast endured in serving others.’  I heard this,” adds Columbus, “as one almost dead, and had no power to reply to words so true, excepting to weep for my errors.  Whoever it was that spoke to me finished by saying, ’Fear not!  All these tribulations are written in marble, and not without cause.’”

  [Footnote 23:  A sarcasm to “catch the conscience of the king.”]

  Religious enthusiasm.

“Though this be madness, there is method in it;” but still, the whole character of Columbus forbids us to assume that this alleged vision was merely an ingenious device for remonstrating with the Sovereigns.  It must not be forgotten that in those times the popular belief as to such matters was very different from that which obtains now; and that Columbus was as credulous as his contemporaries on the subject of the supernatural.  It was easy for an imagination like his to be wrought upon so as to give to “airy nothings,” to the “thousand phantasies that crowd into the memory,” the character of special revelations from heaven.  In this very despatch his religious fervour is displayed again and again.  Jerusalem, according to the prophecy, was to be rebuilt by the hand of a Christian.  He would be that Christian.  Prester John, so said tradition, had asked for missionaries to instruct him in the true faith.  He would conduct them to the kingdom of this unknown potentate.  Then he goes on to deplore his own hard case; “surrounded by cruel and hostile savages; isolated, infirm, expecting each day will be my last; severed from the holy sacraments of the Church, so that my soul, if parted here from my body, must be for ever forgotten....If it should please God to deliver me hence, I humbly supplicate your majesties to permit me to repair to Rome, and perform other pilgrimages.”  Columbus, then, being really convinced of the fatal consequences of not being within reach of formal communion with the Church, must have felt that he was risking more than his mere bodily life when he wandered into those unknown countries; that he staked both body and soul on his success.

  Capture of Mendez; escape and safe arrival.