The
Ninth, That He Went With Twelve Ships On His Second Voyage, While He
Actually Had Seventeen.
The tenth, that he arrived at Hispaniola in
twenty days, which is too short a time to reach the nearest islands; and
he certainly did not perform the second voyage in two months, and besides
went to other islands much farther distant before going to Hispaniola.
The
eleventh, that he immediately afterwards went from Hispaniola with two
ships, whereas he certainly went to Cuba with three vessels. The twelfth
falsehood is, that Hispaniola is four hours (difference in longitude)
distant from Spain; while the admiral reckoned it to be five. The
thirteenth, to add one to the dozen, is that the western point of Cuba
is six hours distant from Hispaniola; making a farther distance of
longitude from Hispaniola to Cuba, than from Spain to Hispaniola.
By the foregoing examples of negligence, in inquiring into the truth of
those particulars which are plain and easy to have been learnt, we may
divine what inquiry he made into those which are obscure and in which he
contradicts himself, as already proved. But, laying aside this fruitless
controversy, I shall only add that, in consideration of the many
falsehoods in the Chronicle and Psalter of Justiniani, the senate of Genoa
have imposed a penalty upon any person within their jurisdiction who shall
read or keep those books, and have ordered that they shall be carefully
sought after and destroyed.
To conclude this disquisition, I assert that the admiral, so far from
being a person occupied with the vile employments of mechanics or
handicraft trades, was a man of learning and experience, and entirely
occupied in such studies and exercises as fitted him for and became the
glory and renown of his most wonderful discoveries; and I shall close this
chapter with an extract from a letter which he wrote to the nurse of
Prince John of Castile.
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