For My Father, Who Was A Man Of A Noble And Dignified Spirit,
Insisted Upon Conditions Which Should Redound To
His honour and reputation;
being resolved to leave behind him such a reputation, and so considerable
a family as he
Deemed due to his merits and the actions which he
confidently expected to perform.
While matters were in this train, by the advice of one Doctor Calzadilla
in whom he reposed great confidence, the king of Portugal resolved to
dispatch a caravel in secret to attempt making the discovery which my
father had proposed to him; as, if he could make the discovery in this
clandestine manner, he should be freed from the obligation of bestowing
any great reward on the occasion. Accordingly, a caravel was fitted out
under pretence of carrying supplies to the Cape Verd islands, with private
instructions to sail in the direction in which my father had proposed to
go upon his intended discovery. But the people who were sent upon this
expedition did not possess sufficient knowledge or spirit; and, after
wandering many days in the Atlantic, they returned to the Cape Verd
islands, laughing at the undertaking as ridiculous and impracticable, and
declaring that there could not possibly be any land in that direction or
in those seas. When this scandalous underhand dealing came to my fathers
ears, he took a great aversion to Lisbon and the Portuguese nation; and,
his wife being dead, he resolved to repair into Castile, with his son Don
James Columbus, then a little boy, who has since inherited his fathers
estate.
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