DISCOVERIES OF THE SPANIARDS. 
5 
they were the chosen agents of the Saints of Heaven, appointed 
to carry their names and miracles, to the most distant quarters 
of the world, and to fix the standard of the holy cross in the 
benighted country of the heathen. If the sailors at any time, 
burning under a tropical sun, and seeing no immediate termina¬ 
tion to the privations and hardships, which they were undergoing, 
began to murmur, and to hazard an opinion, that if they really 
were, as was alleged by the priest, in the service of the Saints, 
it would become them to pay a little more attention to the satis¬ 
faction of their wants, and necessities ; then their wily commander 
very opportunely stepped in, and inflamed their imagination, 
with the prospect of the inexhaustible riches that awaited them; 
of the high and dignified station, which they would occupy on 
their return to their native land, laden with the wealth of dis¬ 
tant countries, and thereby be enabled to spend the remainder 
of their lives in affluence and luxury, under the shades of their 
native olive groves, and vineyards. 
History records three instances in the first voyage of Columbus, 
when, had it not been for some pious frauds, practised on the 
sailors by the priests, the helm would have been seized by the 
despairing crew, and the ship made to retrace its course to Spain. 
Thus it appears that although superstition has been, and in some 
degree is still, one of the greatest enemies of the human race, yet 
that it was by the active power of superstition, that Columbus 
succeeded in becoming the discoverer of the western continent. 
If superstition had not impressed the belief on the minds of his 
dissatisfied and rebellious crew, that the priests on board had 
frequent visitations from their patron saints, urging them to pursue 
their course, and promising them ultimate success; if Las Casas 
had not politically stepped forward, with the relation of a miracu¬ 
lous vision, in which appeared to him St. Augustine, who exposed 
to him the view of the country, to which they were fast approach¬ 
ing; the rivers of which flowed over beds of gold, and the 
mountains of which were studded with precious stones, Colum¬ 
bus would have been cast into the hold of his ship, and carried 
back to Spain in irons, as a visionary and a traitor. 
Spain indeed considered the new world as treasure-trove, of 
