CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS. 383 



fitted for the conduct of business, and especially of busi- 

 ness upon a large scale. Even industry and energy, 

 without self-command and command over others, will 

 only suffice for a man so long as he labors by himself. If 

 he would set on foot and sustain great plans, he must 

 know how to illuminate or at least to control other minds, 

 to interest other hearts, and to employ other hands, 

 than his own. 



We have attended to the self-command which was a 

 trait in the character of Columbus. It was a very im- 

 portant one, too ; for as no quality is so essentially ne- 

 cessary to an influence over others, so no individual ever 

 had more occasion or more need, perhaps, for its exer- 

 cise than Columbus. It was self-denial in temptation, 

 self-possession in danger, self-respect and self-confidence 

 in ignominy and disappointment, magnanimity in resent- 

 ment, and in every emergency, in a word, coolness and 

 fortitude. All these were in him, as indeed they are ge- 

 nerally, but various manifestations of the same great 

 principle of self-control, variously exercised by the dif- 

 ferent occasions of life. It is true that one temptation 

 may be stronger in a man's mind than another avarice 

 than ambition, for example or mere appetite than any 

 passion ; but it is also true that the same power which 

 will enable himself completely to control the one, will 

 enable him to check or to compromise with the other. 



The first interview of Columbus with Aguado, the 

 Spanish agent sent out to San Domingo, by the influence 

 of his enemies, to investigate certain malicious and in- 

 solent charges brought against him, is a fine illustration 

 of the foregoing remarks. Entrusted as he had been 

 and deserved to be, in the first instance, with high honors 

 and almost exclusive and supreme authority in the west, 

 the mere appointment of a petty functionary to exercise 

 even a ' brief authority' over him with whatever decency 

 or dignity it might have been done, had the functionary 

 been anything like a gentleman, would have been 

 galling enough to a man of fur less spirit than Columbus. 

 But Aguado, a vulgar and weak character, was purled 

 up by his temporary power. He interfered with public 

 affairs on his first arrival in the colony : ordered various 



