“Very dear son,—­The Licientiate de Zea is a person whom I desire to honour.  He has in his charge two men who are under prosecution at the hands of justice, as shown by the information which is inclosed in this letter.  See that Diego Mendez places the said petition with the others, that they may be given to his Highness during Holy Week for pardon.  If the pardon is granted, it is well, and if not, look for some other manner of obtaining it.  May our Lord have you in His Holy keeping.  Done in Seville, February 25, 1505.  I wrote you and sent it by Amerigo Vespucci.  See that he sends you the letter unless you have already received it.

     “Your father. 
                    Xpo FERENS.//”

This is the last letter of Columbus known to us otherwise an entirely unimportant document, dealing with the most transient affairs.  With it we gladly bring to an end this exposure of a greedy and querulous period, which speaks so eloquently for itself that the less we say and comment on it the better.

In the month of May the Admiral was well enough at last to undertake the journey to Segovia.  He travelled on a mule, and was accompanied by his brother Bartholomew and his son Ferdinand.  When he reached the Court he found the King civil and outwardly attentive to his recitals, but apparently content with a show of civility and outward attention.  Columbus was becoming really a nuisance; that is the melancholy truth.  The King had his own affairs to attend to; he was already meditating a second marriage, and thinking of the young bride he was to bring home to the vacant place of Isabella; and the very iteration of Columbus’s complaints and demands had made them lose all significance for the King.  He waved them aside with polite and empty promises, as people do the demands of importunate children; and finally, to appease the Admiral and to get rid of the intolerable nuisance of his applications, he referred the whole question, first to Archbishop Dea, and then to the body of councillors which had been appointed to interpret Queen Isabella’s will.  The whole question at issue was whether or not the original agreement with Columbus, which had been made before his discoveries, should be carried out.  The King, who had foolishly subscribed to it simply as a matter of form, never believing that anything much could come of it, was determined that it should not be carried out, as it would give Columbus a wealth and power to which no mere subject of a crown was entitled.  The Admiral held fast to his privileges; the only thing that he would consent to submit to arbitration was the question of his revenues; but his titles and territorial authorities he absolutely stuck to.  Of course the council did exactly what the King had done.  They talked about the thing a great deal, but they did nothing.  Columbus was an invalid and broken man, who might die any day, and it was obviously to their interest