undertaking; and he assured the sovereigns that, if they had faith in his
present as in his former proposition, they would assuredly be rewarded
with equally triumphant success. He conjured them not to heed the sneers
of such as might scoff at him as one unlearned, as an ignorant mariner, a
worldly man; reminding them that the Holy Spirit works not merely in the
learned, but also in the ignorant; nay, that it reveals things to come,
not merely by rational beings, but by prodigies in animals, and by mystic
signs in the air and in the heavens.

The enterprise here suggested by Columbus, however idle and extravagant it
may appear in the present day, was in unison with the temper of the times,
and of the court to which it was proposed. The vein of mystic erudition by
which it was enforced, likewise, was suited to an age when the reveries of
the cloister still controlled the operations of the cabinet and the camp.
The spirit of the crusades had not yet passed away. In the cause of the
church, and at the instigation of its dignitaries, every cavalier was
ready to draw his sword; and religion mingled a glowing and devoted
enthusiasm with the ordinary excitement of warfare. Ferdinand was a
religious bigot; and the devotion of Isabella went as near to bigotry as
her liberal mind and magnanimous spirit would permit. Both the sovereigns
were under the influence of ecclesiastical politicians, constantly guiding
their enterprises in a direction to redound to the temporal power and
glory of the church. The recent conquest of Granada had been considered a
European crusade, and had gained to the sovereigns the epithet of
Catholic. It was natural to think of extending their sacred victories
still further, and retaliating upon the infidels their domination of Spain
and their long triumphs over the cross. In fact, the Duke of Medina
Sidonia had made a recent inroad into Barbary, in the course of which he
had taken the city of Melilla, and his expedition had been pronounced a
renewal of the holy wars against the infidels in Africa. [108]