CHAP. I V . ]
CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS.
101
Columbus was unwilling to receive it at second hand, and re paired to the court at Seville to learn his fate from the lips of the sovereigns.
Their reply was virtually the same, declining to
engage in the enterprise for the present, but holding out hopes of patronage when relieved from the cares and expenses of the war. Columbus looked upon this indefinite postponement as a mere courtly mode of evading his importunity, and supposed that the favorable dispositions of the sovereigns had been counteracted by the objections of the ignorant and bigoted.
Renouncing all fur
ther confidence, therefore, in vague promises, which had so often led to disappointment, and giving up all hopes of countenance from the throne, he turned his back upon Seville, indignant at the thoughts of having been beguiled out of so many precious years of waning existence.