This was the end of five years of solicitation, in which he had put his trust in princes.

Columbus regarded the answer, as well he might, as only a courtly measure of refusal.

And he retired in disgust from the court at Seville.
He determined to lay his plans before the King of France.

He was traveling with this purpose, with his son, Diego, now a boy of ten or twelve years of age, when he arrived at night at the hospitable convent of Saint Mary of Rabida, which has been made celebrated by that incident.

It is about three miles south of what was then the seaport of Palos, one of the active ports of commercial Spain.