king and queen shall order them removed, and I shall keep them always as
relics and memorials of my services.

It always makes us sad to see any one in great trouble. To hear of
a great man who has fallen low or of a rich man who has become poor,
always makes us say: Is not that too bad? Columbus had many enemies in
Spain. The nobles of the court, the men who had lost money in voyages
to the Indies, the people whose fathers and sons and brothers had sailed
away never to return, could not say anything bad enough about "this
upstart Italian," as they called Columbus.

But to the most of the people Columbus was still the great Admiral. He
was the man who had stuck to his one idea until he had made a friend
of the queen; who had sailed away into the West and proved the Sea of
Darkness and the Jumping-off place to be only fairy tales after all; who
had found Cathay and the Indies for Spain. He was still a great man to
the multitude.

So when on a certain October day, in the year 1500, it was spread abroad
that a ship had just come into the harbor of Cadiz, bringing home the
great Admiral, Christopher Columbus, a prisoner and in chains, folks
began to talk at once. Why, who has done this? they cried. Is this the
way to treat the man who found Cathay for Spain, the man whom the king
and the queen delighted to honor, the man who made a procession for us
with all sorts of birds and animals and pagan Indians? It cannot be.
Why, we all remember how he sailed into Palos Harbor eight years ago and
was received like a prince with banners and proclamations and salutes.
And now to bring him home in chains! It is a shame; it is cruel; it is
wicked. And when people began to talk in this way, the very ones who had
said the worst things against him began to change their tone.