drawing from him his general ideas of the length of the voyage and the
course he meant to take, that splendid monarch had the meanness to conspire
with this council to rob Columbus of the glory and advantage he expected
to derive from his undertaking. While Columbus was amused with the
negotiation, in hopes of having his scheme adopted, a vessel was secretly
dispatched by order of the king to make the intended discovery. Want of
skill or courage in the pilot rendered the plot unsuccessful; and Columbus,
on discovering the treachery, retired with an ingenuous indignation from a
court which could be capable of such duplicity.

Having now performed what was due to the country that gave him birth, and
to the one that had adopted him as a subject, he was at liberty to court
the patronage of any other which should have the wisdom to accept his
proposals. He had communicated his ideas to his brother Bartholomew, whom
he sent to England to negotiate with Henry Seventh; at the same time he
went himself into Spain to apply in person to Ferdinand and Isabella, who
governed the united kingdoms of Arragon and Castile.

The circumstances of his brother's application in England, which appears
to have been unsuccessful, are not to my purpose to relate; and the
limits prescribed to this biographical sketch will prevent the detail of
particulars respecting his own negotiation in Spain. This occupied him
eight years; in which the various agitations of suspense, expectation and
disappointment must have borne hard upon his patience. At length his scheme
was adopted by Isabella; who undertook, as queen of Castile, to defray the
expenses of the expedition, and declared herself ever after the friend and
patron of the hero who projected it.

Columbus, who during his ill success in the negotiation never abated any
thing of the honors and emoluments which he expected to acquire in the