Maybe he envied the worker who had
passed away first, for he sadly wrote to his son Diego, "Our tired lady
now lies beyond the desires of this rough and wearisome world."
But Columbus himself was not yet out of this "wearisome world," and was
troubling his weary brain far too much about its petty details. From his
fourth voyage he had returned much poorer than he ever expected to be at
the end of his sea-going life. The little money he had been able to
collect from his plantation in Espanola had been used to equip the ships
that brought him home, and to pay his sailors; for this was a point on
which he was always most scrupulous. When his ready money was thus used
up, the good monks of Las Cuevas had to provide for his necessities
until finally the banks advanced money on the strength of his claims
against the Crown. After the death of Isabella these claims had small
chance of being considered to his full satisfaction, for Ferdinand
argued that the contract of Granada was, owing to the vast extent of the
new lands, impossible for either the Crown on the one hand or Columbus
on the other to fulfill. That rascally Porras, who had caused so much
trouble during the Jamaica days, was at court, filling everybody's ears
with slanderous stories about the Admiral during the days when the
Admiral himself was wearying Ferdinand with a constant stream of
letters.
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