ied and enforced them with new grounds of great
plausibility, so as to leave his adversaries in a more ridiculous
plight, when he afterwards overturned them all."

The discovery of Jupiter's satellites suggested to Galileo a new method
of finding the longitude at sea. Philip III. had encouraged astronomers
to direct their attention to this problem, by offering a reward for its
solution; and in those days, when new discoveries in science were
sometimes rejected as injurious to mankind, it was no common event to
see a powerful sovereign courting the assistance of astronomers in
promoting the commercial interests of his empire. Galileo seems to have
regarded the solution of this problem as an object worthy of his
ambition; and he no doubt anticipated the triumph which he would obtain
over his enemies, if the Medicean stars, which they had treated with
such contempt, could be made subservient to the great interests of
mankind. During his residence at Rome in 1615 and 1616, Galileo had
communicated his views on this subject to the Comte di Lemos, the
Viceroy of Naples, who had presided over the council of the Spanish
Indies. This nobleman advised him to apply to the Spanish minister the
Duke of Lerma; and, through the influence of the Grand Duke Cosmo, his
ambassador at the court of Madrid was engaged to manage the affair. The
anxiety of Galileo on this subject was singularly great. He assured the
Tuscan ambassador that, in order to accomplish this object, "he was
ready to leave all his comforts, his country, his friends, and his
family, to cross over into Spain, and to stay as long as he might be
wanted at Seville or at Lisbon, or wherever it might be convenient to
communicate a knowledge of his method." The lethargy of the Spanish
court seems to have increased with the enthusiasm of Galileo; and though
the negotiations were occasionally revived for ten or twelve years, yet
no steps were taken to bring them to a close. This strange
procrastination has been generally ascribed to jealousy or indifference
on the part of Spain; but Nelli, one of Galileo's biographers, declares,
on the authority of Florentine records, that Cosmo had privately
requested from the government the privilege of sending annually to the
Spanish Indies two Leghorn merchantmen free of duty, as a compensation
for the loss of Galileo!

The failure of this negotiation must have been a source of extreme
mortification to the high spirit and sanguine temperame