BURIAL OF COLUMBUS. 



181 



and exactions of the new masters of the island, he obtained a 

 caravel, and again sailed for Spain on the 12th of September, 

 1504. During the passage, he was compelled, by a severe attack 

 of rheumatism, to remain confined to his cabin. His tempest- 

 tossed and shattered bark at last cast anchor in the harbor of 

 San Lucar. He proceeded to Seville, where he heard, with dis- 

 may, of the illness, and then of the death, of his patroness 

 Isabella. Sickness now detained him at Seville till the spring 

 of 1505, when he arrived, exhausted and paralytic, before the 

 king. Here he underwent another courtly denial of redress. 

 He was now without shelter and without hope. He was com- 

 pelled to borrow money with which to pay for a shabby room 

 at a miserable inn. He lingered for a year in poverty and 1 

 neglect, and died at last in Valladolid, on the 20th of May, 

 1506. The revolting ingratitude of Ferdinand of Spain thus 

 caused the death, in rags, in destitution, and in infirmity, of 

 the greatest man that has ever served the cause of progress or 

 labored in the paths of science. Had we written the life of 

 Columbus, and not thus briefly sketched the history of his 

 voyages, we should have found it easy to assert and maintain 

 his claim to this commanding position. 



The agitation of the life of Columbus followed his remains to 

 the grave, — for he was buried four successive times, and hi& 

 dead body made the passage of the Atlantic. It was first de- 

 posited in the vaults of the Franciscan Convent of Valladolid, 

 where it remained seven years. In 1513, Ferdinand, now old 

 and perhaps repentant, caused the coffin to be brought from 

 Valladolid to Seville, where a solemn service was said over it 

 in the grand cathedral. It was then placed in the chapel be- 

 longing to the Chartreux. In 1536, the coffin was transported 

 to the city of St. Domingo, in the island of Hispaniola. Here 

 it remained for two hundred and sixty years. In 1795, Spain 

 ceded the island to France, stipulating that the ashes of Colum- 

 bus should be transferred to Spanish soil. In December of the' 



