A.D. 1491.

Ferdinand V., king of Arragon, besieged Boabdil, the last king of the Moors of Grenada, in his capital, with an army of fifty thousand men. Grenada, surrounded by a double wall, fortified by one thousand and thirty towers, had two citadels, one of which served as a palace for the king. An army of thirty thousand Moors was within the walls; it had an immense and warlike population, and magnificent stores of munitions and provisions seemed to render it impregnable. Ferdinand did not attack Grenada according to the usual system of sieges; he employed neither lines, nor trenches, nor artillery: he surrounded his own camp with walls and works. His sole aim was to starve the enemy, and make himself master of all the passages; he rooted up the trees, he burnt the houses, and in a moment changed a delightful territory into a dry and arid desert. The garrison endeavoured to make sorties, but it was overwhelmed by numbers, and always proved unfortunate. The Saracens flattered themselves that the rigours of winter would oblige the Christians to depart; but their hopes were disappointed. Ferdinand’s camp became a fortified city, furnished with solid fire-proof houses. The Moors saw with grief that nothing could discourage the Castilians. The rigours of famine began to be felt, and cold augmented both public and private misery. In this extremity it was determined to treat with Ferdinand, and they consented to surrender, if not relieved within sixty days. Scarcely had the Moorish king signed the treaty than he repented of it; the thoughts of descending from his throne plunged him into the deepest grief, and yet he did not dare to retract, so great were the evils that surrounded him. His army could not endure the idea of submitting to the Christians, and the inhabitants incessantly implored the assistance of God and of Mahomet. Suddenly an Alfaique excited the people to revolt; at his voice twenty thousand men took arms. Boabdil required all his eloquence to restore order; he pointed out to them, with tears in his eyes, that if they preferred life to a certain death, they were bound by the stern necessity of observing the capitulation. The sedition was appeased, but the public despair was so great, that the king of the Moors, dreading to see it renewed, hastened to surrender all his forts, and to repair to the camp of the conqueror. Thus, after a duration of seven hundred and sixty-two years, terminated the domination of the Moors in Spain.