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The sovereigns were obliged to start out to far Galicia, as has been related on page ssss1; but before they went they replied to Colon that, ‘though they were prevented at present from entering into new enterprises, owing to their being engaged in so many wars and conquests, especially that of Granada, they hoped in time that a better opportunity would occur to examine his proposals and discuss his offers.’[58] This answer, at all events, prevented Colon’s supporters in Spain from despairing; and whilst the monarchs were in Galicia in the winter of 1486, the Dominican Deza, the Prince’s tutor, who was also a professor at Salamanca, conceived the idea that an independent inquiry by the pundits of the university might arrive at a different conclusion from that of Talavera’s commission, and undo the harm the latter had effected. Though there is no evidence of the fact, it is certain that Deza, who was a Castilian and a member of the Queen’s household, would not have taken such a step as he did without Isabel’s consent. In any case, Colon travelled to Salamanca; and there, as the guest of Deza in the Dominican monastery of Saint Stephen, he held constant conference with the learned men for whom the famous University was a centre.

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