treasure, yet with the other strangled domestic thrift and trade, and undermined the foundations of the kingdom they had sacrificed so much to consolidate and perpetuate.

The Jews had brought commerce and manufactures, they were skilled agriculturists, some of them learned for their time; the Moors had brought into Spain, or had developed there, a glorious architecture, schools, and colleges, renowned throughout Europe, arts, and even sciences, and had reclaimed from the desert vast areas of waste lands; they had built beautiful cities and towns, castles and palaces, which are the admiration of all who see them to-day; yet both Jews and Moors were driven from Spain as though they were its deadly enemies. Those who drove them forth were not capable of creating a tithe of what the Moors and Jews had done; to their credit is not one work of art, not one beautiful structure of renown; but they were through force of circumstance and skill at arms the conquerors, and the lives of these vastly superior peoples were at their mercy.

Had they but treated them with leniency, had they encouraged them in their peculiar industries and pursuits, Spain would probably have become the grandest nation in Europe, instead of merely rising to temporary great

ness and ultimately sinking to insignificant proportions. As with the Jews, so the Castilian sovereigns dealt with the Moors. Though they had stipulated on oath that they should be protected in the observances of their own religion, yet not long after, urged thereto by the inquisitors of the Holy Office, they broke their sacred pledges and turned them over to their enemies. Many professed to become converted, to escape persecution, but others were driven to rebellion, fled to the mountains and waged a bloody war until overcome by force.

Says a learned historian of that time, when the Inquisition claimed its innocent victims. by hundreds and thousands: "Now a scene of persecution and cruelty began which far exceeds in atrocity anything which history has related. Every tie of nature and society was broken, every duty and every relation violated, and torture forced from all alike false accusations, betrayal of friends, confession of impossible crimes; while the actors in these horrible tragedies were shielded by impenetrable secrecy from the revenge of their victims and the detestation of society."

Were it not for such acts as these, and had Isabella and Ferdinand inclined to mercy rather than listened to the advice of bigoted counsellors, their reign might have earned the

distinction of being, what many have claimed for it, the greatest that Spain ever knew. They built wisely in many things, they advanced Spain from obscurity to become a power among nations; they earned the love and regard of their Christian subjects by works promoting their welfare; but at the same time they vitiated the good deeds by their barbarous treatment of "heretics."

It is no matter of wonder that an attempt was made on Ferdinand's life, in Catalonia, soon after the capture of Granada, and that even Isabella was not safe from covert attack. Still, they were a well-matched pair, and, from a worldly and contemporary point of view, were all-sufficient to Spain in her time of greatest need. Isabella was calm and lucid in her counsels, inclined to benevolence and mercy where religious questions were not involved, and, as one writer has expressed it, followed after Ferdinand's armies to garner the wheat which he had cut on the fields of war. Ferdinand was crafty, a diplomat whose match all Europe could not. then produce. This is shown in his conduct of the Neapolitan wars, when he outwitted the King of France, and eventually gathered the rewards to himself, adding the title of King of Naples to his other distinctions. "Foreign affairs were conducted by the king

in behalf of Aragon, just as colonial affairs were for the benefit of Castile."

They did not lack for learned and astute counsellors, such as Cardinal Mendoza, Torquemada, and Ximenes. The last named, born before his sovereigns, yet outlived them both, and to the end was a faithful, even though bigoted, servant and courtier. Chosen as the queen's confessor in 1492, he was later appointed Archbishop of Toledo, and after Isabella's death became a cardinal, throughout his career remaining loyal to the throne.

Another faithful servant of the Crown was Gonsalvo de Cordova, who fought magnificently against the Moors, and then was sent to carry on the wars in Naples, where Spanish arms were so triumphant that he earned the title of the "Great Captain," and covered Ferdinand's reign with glory.

After the death of Isabella, which occurred on November 26, 1504, Ferdinand's diplomacy continued him in power as regent and sovereign, except for a brief term; and it was to him that Columbus vainly appealed for justice when, weak and broken from his four transatlantic voyages, he came back to endure poverty and neglect.

ALTHOUGH Queen Isabella assumed all responsibility for the first voyage of Columbus, and is said to have declared, "I am ready to pawn my jewels for the expenses," yet the treasury of Aragon has the credit of providing the necessary funds. Already fifty-six years of age when he started on this voyage, Columbus had spent eighteen of the best years of his life supplicating at courts and pleading for recognition; so he was no longer blessed with health and vigour. Returning from the first triumphant achievement early in 1493, the same year he sailed from Cadiz with a larger fleet, and discovered islands farther to the south than those which he first saw and landed on, as well as the island of Jamaica. In 1498 yet another voyage revealed the island of Trinidad and a portion.