These Latter, Then So Much Admired,
Were Not Afterwards So Much Valued, As In Progress Of Time Lumps Of Gold
Have Been Found Which Weighed Above Thirty Pounds; But They Were Then Held
In High Estimation In Prospect Of Great Future Hopes, And Were Received In
Good Part By Their Majesties.
When the admiral had given them an account
of all that seemed to him necessary for improving and peopling
The Indies,
he was very desirous to return thither with all speed, lest some disaster
might happen during his absence, considering that he had left the colony
in great want of necessaries; and though he strongly solicited and pressed
the necessity of speedy succours, such was the tediousness and delay of
business in that court, that ten or twelve months elapsed before he could
procure the equipment of two ships, which were sent out in February 1498,
under the command of Pedro Fernandez Coronel.
The admiral remained at court to solicit the appointment of such a fleet
as he considered to be necessary for his return to the Indies. But he was
forced to remain above a year at Burgos and Medina del Campo, where in the
year 1497 their majesties granted him many favours, and gave the necessary
orders for expediting his affairs, and for the settlement and government
of the Indies. These I here mention to shew that their Catholic majesties
were, still ready to acknowledge and reward his services and merit; though
they afterwards altered greatly in this respect, through the false
information and scandalous insinuations of malicious and envious persons,
so as to permit gross wrongs to be done him, as will afterwards appear.
Having at length procured the necessary orders, he proceeded to Seville,
and there the fitting out of his fleet was retarded very unprofitably
through the negligence and ill management of the public officers,
especially Juan de Fonseca, the archdeacon of Seville, who was afterwards
bishop of Burgos, and always was a bitter enemy to the admiral and his
affairs, and became the chief leader among those who afterwards brought
him into disgrace with their Catholic majesties. While engaged at Seville
in superintending the equipment, that my brother and I might not suffer by
the delays, we having both served as pages to Prince John, who was now
dead, he sent us back to court in November 1497 to serve as pages to her
majesty Queen Isabella of glorious memory.
SECTION IX.
Account of the Admirals third Voyage, during which he discovered the
Continent of Paria; with the occurrences to his arrival in Hispaniola.
The admiral forwarded the equipment of this expedition with all possible
care, and set sail from the bay of San Lucar de Barameda on the thirtieth
of May 1498, having six ships loaded with provisions and other necessaries
for the relief of the colonists in Hispaniola, and for the farther
settlement and peopling of that island. On the seventh of June he arrived
at the island of Puerto Santo, where he heard mass, and took in wood and
water and other necessaries, yet he sailed that same night for Madeira,
where he arrived on Sunday the ninth of June, and was courteously received
and entertained at Funchal by the governor of the island. He remained in
this place until Saturday the fifteenth of June, providing all manner of
refreshments, and arrived at Gomera on Wednesday the nineteenth of the
same month. At this place there was a French ship which, had captured
three Spanish vessels; on seeing the admirals squadron, the Frenchman
stood out to sea with two of his prizes: and the admiral supposing them to
be three merchant vessels which mistook his squadron for French, took no
care to pursue till too late, and when informed of what they were, he sent
three of his ships in pursuit but they got clear off. They might have
carried away the third prize likewise, if they had not abandoned her in
the consternation they were in on first noticing our fleet; so that there
being only four Frenchmen on board and six Spaniards belonging to her
original crew, the Spaniards on seeing assistance at hand, clapt the
Frenchmen under the hatches and returned into port, where the vessel was
restored to her former master. The admiral would have executed these
French prisoners as pirates, but that Don Alvaro de Lugo the governor
interceded for them, that they might be given in exchange for six of the
inhabitants who had been carried away.
The admiral sailed from Gomera for Ferro on Thursday the twenty-first of
June, whence he resolved to send three of his ships direct to Hispaniola,
and going with the rest to the islands of Cabo Verde to sail directly over
from thence to discover the continent. He therefore appointed a captain to
each of the ships which he sent to Hispaniola. One of those was Pedro de
Arana, cousin to that Arana who died in Hispaniola, the second was Alonzo
Sanchez de Caravajal, and the third his own kinsman John Anthony Columbus.
To these captains he gave particular instructions for the conduct of their
voyage, directing that each of them should have the command a week in his
turn. Having dispatched these three ships for Hispaniola, he set out with
the other three for the Cape Verde islands; but the climate he was then
entering upon being unhealthy at that season, he had a terrible fit of the
gout in one leg, and four days afterwards he fell into a violent fever;
but, notwithstanding this sickness he was still himself, and diligently
observed the course made by the ship, the alterations of the weather, and
all other circumstances as in his first voyage.
On the twenty-fifth June he discovered the island de Sal, one of the Cape
Verdes, and passing it he came to another very improperly named Bona
vista, which signifies good prospect, yet the place is dull and wretched.
Here he cast anchor in a channel near a small island in which there are
six or seven houses appointed for persons who are afflicted with the
leprosy, who come there to be cured.
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