LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 



373 



were in confusion : ' If I desire to eat or sleep,' he writes, 

 ' I have no resort but an inn, and for the most part have 

 not wherewithal to pay my bill.' He was anxious, too, 

 for the restoration of all the original honors of which he 

 had been gradually deprived; and he earnestly desired, 

 on this and other accounts, to get to court. But this his 

 illness made impossible ; and meanwhile his warm and 

 constant patroness, the queen, died upon the 20th of 

 November, 150-4. He was able to spend months of at- 

 tendance at court during the next season, but this was 

 now unavailing : Ferdinand complimented him politely, 

 but otherwise gave him neither encouragement or assist- 

 ance. 



Life was now drawing to a close, for he was once more 

 confined to his bed by a severe illness, aggravated by his 

 sorrows and disappointments. Ingratitude, the suspension 

 of his honors, pecuniary embarrassments, defamation, anx- 

 iety for his own glory and for the welfare of the Spanish 

 settlements in the west, all had their effect upon him, an 

 effect too strong for a worn-out constitution to endure. 

 Admonished of his approaching end, he made suitable 

 preparations for it with resignation and with calmness. 

 The property which he still owned he ordered to be dis- 

 tributed among relations, friends and servants ; so min- 

 utely remembering the smallest debts, that half a mark 

 of silver was left to a poor Jew, who lived at the gate of 

 Jewry in the city of Lisbon. These arrangements satis- 

 factorily made, he turned his exclusive attention, ear- 

 nestly but with composure, to the interest of his own soul : 

 and having received the holy sacraments, and performed 

 all the pious offices of a devout Christian, he calmly 

 breathed his last on the day of Ascension, May 20th, 

 1506, at the age of about seventy years. His last words 

 were ' //* monus tuas, Domine, commcndo spirit um me- 

 um' ' Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.' 



His body was deposited in the convent of St Francis- 

 co, and his obsequies were celebrated with funeral pomp 

 at Valladolid. In 1513, his remains were transported to 

 the Carthusian monastery of Las Cuevas, at Seville, 

 where also those of his son Diego were deposited upon 

 his death in 1526. Ten years after this, the bodies of 



