But, Lest The Sovereign Of Castile Might Not Consent To His
Proposal, And He Might Be Under The Necessity Of Applying To Some Other
Prince, By Which Much Time Might Be Lost, He Dispatched His Brother
Bartholomew Columbus From Lisbon To Make Similar Proposals To The King Of
England.
Bartholomew, though no Latin scholar, was skilful and experienced
in sea affairs, and had been instructed by the admiral in the construction
of sea charts, globes, and other nautical instruments.
While on his way to
England, Bartholomew Columbus had the misfortune to be taken by pirates,
who stript him and all the rest of the ships company of every thing they
had of value. On this account he arrived in England in such great poverty,
and that aggravated by sickness, that he was unable to deliver his message
until he had recruited his finances by the sale of sea charts of his own
construction, by which a long time was lost He then began to make
proposals to Henry VII. who then reigned in England, to whom he presented
a map of the world, on which the following verses and inscription were
written:
Terrarum quicunque cupis feliciter oras
Noscere, cuncta decens docte pictura docebit,
Quando Strabo affirmat, Ptolomaeus, Plinius, atque
Isiodorus, non una tamen sententia quisque.
Pingitur hic etiam nuper sulcata carinis
Hispanis zona illa, prius incognita genti,
Torrida, quae tandem minet est notissima multis.
Pro Auctore, sive Pictore.
Janua cui patria est nomen, cui Bartholomaeus
Columbus de Terra-rubra, opus edidit istud,
Londiniis Ann.
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