Besides These General Vows,
Several Others Were Made By Individuals.
The tempest was now very violent,
and the admirals ship could hardly withstand its fury for want of ballast,
which was fallen very short in consequence of the provisions and water
being mostly expended.
To supply this want, they filled all the empty
casks in the ship with sea water, which was some help and made the ship to
bear more upright, and be in less danger of oversetting. Of this violent
storm the admiral wrote thus to their Catholic majesties:
"I had been less concerned at the tempest had I alone been in danger, for
I know that I owe my life to my Creator, and I have often been so near
death that only the slightest circumstance was wanting to its completion.
But, since it had pleased God to give me faith and assurance to go upon
this my undertaking in which I have been completely successful, I was
exceedingly distressed lest the fruits of my discoveries might be lost to
your highnesses by my death; whereas if I survived, those who opposed my
proposal would be convinced, and your highnesses served by me with honour
and increase of your royal state. I was therefore much grieved and
troubled lest the Divine Majesty should please to obstruct all this by my
death, which had yet been more tolerable to contemplate if it were not
attended with the loss of all those men I had carried with me upon promise
of happy success. They, seeing themselves in so great jeopardy, did not
only curse their setting out upon the expedition, but the fear and awe
which I had impressed upon them, to dissuade them from returning when
outward bound, as they had several times resolved upon. Above all, my
sorrow was redoubled by the remembrance of two sons whom I had left at
school in Cordova, destitute of friends and in a strange country, before I
had done, or at least before it could be known that I had performed any
service which might incline your majesties to remember and protect them."
"Though I comforted myself with the hope that God would not allow a matter
which tended so much to the exaltation of his church to be left imperfect,
when I had through so much opposition and trouble brought it almost to
perfection; yet I considered that it might be his will that I should not
be permitted to obtain such honour in this world, because of my demerits.
In this perplexity, I remembered your highnesses good fortune; which,
though I were dead and the ship lost, might yet find some means that a
conquest so nearly achieved should not be lost, and that possibly the
success of my voyage might come to your knowledge by some means or other.
With this view, as briefly as the time would permit, I wrote upon
parchment that I had discovered the lands which I had promised; likewise
how many days were employed on the voyage, the direction in which I had
sailed, the goodness of the country, the nature of the inhabitants, and
how some of your highnesses subjects were left in possession of my
discoveries. Which writing I folded and sealed up and superscribed to your
highnesses, promising a reward of 1000 ducats to whoever might deliver it
sealed into your hands; that, in case it might be found by a foreigner,
the promised reward might induce him not to communicate the intelligence.
I then caused a great cask to be brought to me, and having wrapped the
writing in oiled cloth, which I surrounded with a cake of wax, I placed
the whole in the cask: I then carefully closed up the bung-hole and threw
the cask into the sea, all the people fancying that it was some act of
devotion. Apprehending that this might never be taken up, and the ship
coming still nearer to Spain, I made another packet like the first, which
I placed on the poop, that when the ship sunk the cask might float upon
the water, and take its chance of being found."
Sailing on in such extreme danger, at break of day on Friday the 15th of
February, one Ruy Garcia saw land from the round top bearing E.N.E. The
pilot and seamen judged it might be the rock of Lisbon, but the admiral
concluded that it was one of the Azores. Yet though at no great distance,
they could not come to anchor there that day because of the weather, and
the wind being easterly, they lost sight of that island, and got sight of
another, towards which they used every effort to approach, struggling with
continual labour against wind and weather, but unable to reach the land.
In his journal, the admiral says that on the night of Saturday the 16th of
February he arrived at one of the Azores, but could not tell which; and
having had no rest from the foregoing Wednesday, and being lame in both
legs by being continually wet and in the open air, he took some sleep that
night. Even provisions were now scanty. Having come to anchor on Monday
the 18th February, he learnt from some of the inhabitants that it was the
island of St Mary, one of the Azores, and the inhabitants expressed great
surprize that the ship had weathered the storm, which had continued
fifteen days in these parts without intermission.
Learning the great discovery which the admiral had made, the inhabitants
of St Mary seemed greatly to rejoice, giving praise to God, and three of
them came on board with some fresh provisions, and with many compliments
from the commander of the island, who resided at the town not far from
thence. About this place nothing was seen but a hermitage, said to be
dedicated to the Blessed virgin; whereupon the admiral and all the crew,
bearing in remembrance the vow which they had made on the Thursday before,
to go barefooted and in their shirts to some church of our Lady at the
first land, were of opinion that they ought here to discharge their vow,
especially as the governor and people expressed so much kindness for them,
and as they belonged to a king who was in perfect amity with Castile.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 35 of 214
Words from 34863 to 35920
of 219607
