e was enabled to carry it into effect; that most of
that time was passed in almost hopeless solicitation, amid poverty,
neglect, and taunting ridicule; that the prime of his life had wasted
away in the struggle, and that, when his perseverance was finally
crowned with success, he was about in his fifty-sixth year. This example
should encourage the enterprising never to despair."--Washington
Irving's _Life of Columbus_, vol. i., p. 174.]

[Footnote 48: "While Columbus lay on a sick-bed by the River Belem, he
was addressed in a dream by an unknown voice, distinctly uttering these
words: 'Maravillosamente Dios hizo sonar tu nombre en la tierra; de los
atamientos de la Mar Oceana, que estaban cerradas con cadenas tan
fuertes, te dio las llaves.' (Letter to the Catholic monarch, July 7th,
1503.)"--Humboldt's _Cosmos_.]

[Footnote 49: See Appendix, No. XIII. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 50: "The application to King Henry VII. was not made until
1488, as would appear from the inscription on a map which Bartholomew
presented to the king. Las Casas intimates, from letters and writings of
Bartholomew Columbus, in his possession, that the latter accompanied
Bartholomew Diaz in his voyage from Lisbon, in 1486, along the coast of
Africa, in the course of which he discovered the Cape of Good
Hope."--Las Casas, _Hist. Ind._, lib. i., cap. vii.]

[Footnote 51: "The American Continent was first discovered under the
auspices of the English, and the coast of the United States by a native
of England (Sebastian Cabot told me that he was born in
Bristowe)."--_History of the Travayles in the East and West Indies_, by
R. Eden and R. Willes, 1577. fol. 267. Posterity hardly remembered that
they[52] (the Cabots) had reached the American Continent nearly four
months before Columbus, on his third voyage, came in sight of the
main-land.--Bancroft's _Hist. of the United States_, vol. i., p. 11.
Charlevoix's "Histoire de la Nouvelle France," and the "Fastes
Chronologiques," endeavor to discredit the discoveries of John and
Sebastian Cabot, but the testimonies of cotemporary authors are
decisive. Unfortunately, no journal or relation remains of the voyages
of the Cabots to North America, but several authors have handed down
accounts of them, which they received from the lips of Sebastian Cabot
himself. See Hakluyt, iii., 27; Galearius Butrigarius, in Ramusio, tom.
ii.; Ramusio, Preface to tom. iii.; Peter Martyr ab Angleria, Dec. III.,
cap. vi.; Gomar