The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume II Part 37

[24] Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 415. The alteration was in the gold currency; which continued to rise in value till 1497, when it gradually sunk, in consequence of the importation from the mines of Hispaniola.

Clemencin has given its relative value as compared with silver, for several different years; and the year he a.s.signs for the commencement of its depreciation, is precisely the same with that indicated by Zuniga.

(Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 20.) The value of silver was not materially affected till the discovery of the great mines of Potosi and Zacatecas.

[25] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 131.

[26] The estimates in the text, it will be noticed, apply only to the period antecedent to Ovando's administration, in 1502. The operations under him were conducted on a far more extensive and efficient plan. The system of _repartimientos_ being revived, the whole physical force of the island, aided by the best mechanical apparatus, was employed in extorting from the soil all its hidden stores of wealth. The success was such that in 1506, within two years after Isabella's death, the four foundries established in the island yielded an annual amount, according to Herrera, of 450,000 ounces of gold. It must be remarked, however, that one-fifth only of the gross sum obtained from the mines was at that time paid to the crown. It is a proof how far these returns exceeded the expectations at the time of Ovando's appointment, that the person then sent out, as marker of the gold, was to receive, as a reasonable compensation, one per cent, of all the gold a.s.sayed. The perquisite, however, was found to be so excessive, that the functionary was recalled, and a new arrangement made with his successor. (See Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 6, cap. 18.) When Navagiero visited Seville, in 1520, the royal fifth of the gold, which pa.s.sed through the mints, amounted to about 100,000 ducats annually. Viaggio, fol. 15.

[27] The curious reader is particularly referred to a late work, ent.i.tled _Lettere sutta Storia de' Mali Venerei, di Domenico Thiene, Venezia_, 1823; for the knowledge and loan of which I am indebted to my friend, Dr.

Walter Channing. In this work, the author has a.s.sembled all the early notices of the disease of any authority, and discussed their import with great integrity and judgment. The following positions may be considered as established by his researches. 1. That neither Columbus nor his son, in their copious narratives and correspondence, allude in any way to the existence of such a disease in the New World. I must add, that an examination of the original doc.u.ments, published by Navarrete since the date of Dr. Thiene's work, fully confirms this statement. 2. That among the frequent notices of the disease, during the twenty-five years immediately following the discovery of America, there is not a single intimation of its having been brought from that country; but, on the contrary, a uniform derivation of it from some other source, generally France. 3. That the disorder was known and circ.u.mstantially described previous to the expedition of Charles VIII., and of course could not have been introduced by the Spaniards in that way, as vulgarly supposed. 4.

That various contemporary authors trace its existence in a variety of countries, as far back as 1493, and the beginning of 1494, showing a rapidity and extent of diffusion perfectly irreconcilable with its importation by Columbus in 1493. 5. Lastly, that it was not till after the close of Ferdinand and Isabella's reigns, that the first work appeared affecting to trace the origin of the disease to America; and this, published 1517, was the production not of a Spaniard, but a foreigner.

A letter of Peter Martyr to the learned Portuguese Arias Barbosa, professor of Greek at Salamanca, noticing the symptoms of the disease in the most unequivocal manner, will settle at once this much vexed question, if we can rely on the genuineness of the date, the 5th of April, 1488, about five years before the return of Columbus. Dr. Thiene, however, rejects the date as apocryphal, on the ground, 1. That the name of "morbus Gallicus," given to the disease by Martyr, was not in use till after the French invasion, in 1494. 2. That the superscription of Greek professor at Salamanca was premature, as no such professors.h.i.+p existed there till 1508.

As to the first of these objections, it may be remarked, that there is but one author prior to the French invasion, who notices the disease at all.

He derives it from Gaul, though not giving it the technical appellation of _morbus Gallicus_; and Martyr, it may be observed, far from confining himself to this, alludes to one or two other names, showing that its t.i.tle was then quite undetermined. In regard to the second objection, Dr. Thiene does not cite his authority for limiting the introduction of Greek at Salamanca to 1508. He may have found a plausible one in the account of that university compiled by one of its officers, Pedro Chacon, in 1569, inserted in the eighteenth volume of the Semanario Erudito, (Madrid, 1789.) The accuracy of the writer's chronology, however, may well be doubted from a gross anachronism on the same page with the date referred to, where he speaks of Queen Joanna as inheriting the crown in 1512.

(Hist. de la Universidad de Salamanca, p. 55.) Waiving this, however, the fact of Barbosa being Greek professor at Salamanca in 1488 is directly intimated by his pupil the celebrated Andrew Resendi. "Arias Lusita.n.u.s,"

says he, "quadraginta, et eo plus annos Salmanticae tum Latinas litteras, tum Graecas, magna c.u.m laude professus est." (Responsio ad Quevedum, apud Barbosa, Bibliotheca Lusitana, tom. i. p. 77.) Now, as Barbosa, by general consent, pa.s.sed several years in his native country, Portugal, before his death in 1530, this a.s.sertion of Resendi necessarily places him at Salamanca in the situation of Greek instructor some time before the date of Martyr's letter. It may be added, indeed, that Nic. Antonio, than whom a more competent critic could not be found, so far from suspecting the date of the letter, cites it as settling the period when Barbosa filled the Greek chair at Salamanca, (See Bibliotheca Nova, tom. i. p. 170.)

Martyr's epistle, if we admit the genuineness of the date, must dispose at once of the whole question of the American origin of the venereal disease.

But as this question is determined quite as conclusively, though not so summarily, by the acc.u.mulated evidence from other sources, the reader will probably think the matter not worth so much discussion.

[28] This event occurred in 1497, Vasco de Gama doubling the Cape of Good Hope, November 20th, in that year, and reaching Calicut in the following May, 1498. La Clede, Hist. de Portugal, tom. iii. pp. 104-109.

[29] See, among others, Peter Martyr, Opus Epist, epist. 181.

[30] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. iii. pp. 18-26.--Cabral's pretensions to the discovery of Brazil appear not to have been doubted until recently. They are sanctioned both by Robertson and Raynal.

[31] The Portuguese court formed, probably, no very accurate idea of the geographical position of Brazil. King Emanuel, in a letter to the Spanish sovereigns acquainting them with Cabral's voyage, speaks of the newly discovered region as not only convenient, but _necessary_, for the navigation to India. (See the letter, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. iii. no. 13.) The oldest maps of this country, whether from ignorance or design, bring it twenty-two degrees east of its proper longitude, so that the whole of the vast tract now comprehended under the name of Brazil, would fall on the Portuguese side of the part.i.tion line agreed on by the two governments, which, it will be remembered, was removed to 370 leagues west of the Cape de Verd Islands. The Spanish court made some show at first of resisting the pretensions of the Portuguese, by preparations for establis.h.i.+ng a colony on the northern extremity of the Brazilian territory. (Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. iii. p. 39.) It is not easy to understand how it came finally to admit these pretensions. Any correct admeasurement with the Castilian league would only have included the fringe, as it were, of the northeastern promontory of Brazil. The Portuguese league, allowing seventeen to a degree, may have been adopted, which would embrace nearly the whole territory which pa.s.sed under the name of Brazil, in the best ancient maps, extending from Para on the north, to the great river of San Pedro on the south. (See Malte Brun, Universal Geography, (Boston, 1824-9,) book 91.) Mariana seems willing to help the Portuguese, by running the part.i.tion line one hundred leagues farther west than they claimed themselves. Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. p. 607.

END OF VOL. II.