The Pinzons.
It was on the 23d of May that, accompanied by Juan Perez, Columbus met the people of Palos assembled in the church of St. George, while a notary read the royal commands laid upon the town. It took a little time for the simple people to divine the full extent of such an order,—its consignment of fellow-creatures to the dreaded evils of the great unknown ocean. The reluctance to enter upon the undertaking proved so great, except among a few prisoners taken from the jails, that it became necessary to report the obstacle to the Court, when a new peremptory order was issued on June 20 to impress the vessels and crews. Juan de Peñalosa, an officer of the royal household, appeared in Palos to enforce this demand. Even such imperative measures availed little, and it was not till Martin Alonso Pinzon came forward, and either by an agreement to divide with Columbus the profits, or through some other understanding,—for the testimony on the point is doubtful, and Las Casas disbelieves any such division of profits,—exerted his influence, in which he was aided by his brother, also a navigator, Vicente Yañez Pinzon. There is a story traceable to a son of the elder Pinzon, who testified in the Columbus lawsuit that Martin Alonso had at one time become convinced of the existence of western lands from some documents and charts which he had seen at Rome. The story, like that of his companionship with Cousin, already referred to, has in it, however, many elements of suspicion.
This help of the Pinzons proved opportune and did much to save the cause, for it had up to this time seemed impossible to get vessels or crews. The standing of these navigators as men and their promise to embark personally put a new complexion on the undertaking, and within a month the armament was made up. Harrisse has examined the evidence in the matter to see if there is any proof that the Pinzons contributed more than their personal influence, but there is no apparent ground for believing they did, unless they stood behind Columbus in his share of the expenses, which are computed at 500,000 maravedis, while those of the Queen, arranged through Santangel, are reckoned at 1,140,000 of that money. The fleet consisted, as Peter Martyr tells us, of two open caravels, "Nina" and "Pinta"—the latter, with its crew, being pressed into the service,—decked only at the extremities, where high prows and poops gave quarters for the crews and their officers. A large-decked vessel of the register known as a carack, and renamed by Columbus the "Santa Maria," which proved "a dull sailer and unfit for discovery," was taken by Columbus as his flagship. There is some confusion in the testimony relating to the name of this ship. The Historie alone calls her by this name. Las Casas simply styles her "The Captain." One of the pilots speaks of her as the "Mari Galante." Her owner was one Juan de la Cosa, apparently not the same person as the navigator and cosmographer later to be met, and he had command of her, while Pero Alonso Nino and Sancho Ruis served as pilots.
Character of the ships.
Captain G. V. Fox has made an estimate of her dimensions from her reputed tonnage by the scale of that time, and thinks she was sixty-three feet over all in length, fifty-one feet along her keel, twenty feet beam, and ten and a half in depth.
The crews.
The two Pinzons were assigned to the command of the other caravels,—Martin Alonso to the "Pinta," the larger of the two, with a third brother of his as pilot, and Vicente Yañez to the "Nina." Many obstacles and the natural repugnances of sailors to embark in so hazardous a service still delayed the preparations, but by the beginning of August the arrangements were complete, and a hundred and twenty persons, as Peter Martyr and Oviedo tell us, but perhaps the Historie and Las Casas are more correct in saying ninety in all, were ready to be committed to what many of them felt were most desperate fortunes. Duro has of late published in his Colón y Pinzon what purports to be a list of their names. It shows in Tallerte de Lajes a native of England who has been thought to be one named in his vernacular Arthur Lake; and Guillemio Ires, called of Galway, has sometimes been fancied to have borne in his own land the name perhaps of Rice, Herries, or Harris. There was no lack of the formal assignments usual in such important undertakings. There was a notary to record the proceedings and a historian to array the story; an interpreter to be prepared with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Coptic, and Armenian, in the hopes that one of these tongues might serve in intercourse with the great Asiatic potentates, and a metallurgist to pronounce upon precious ores. They were not without a physician and a surgeon. It does not appear if their hazards should require the last solemn rites that there was any priest to shrive them; but Columbus determined to start with all the solemnity that a confession and the communion could impart, and this service was performed by Juan Perez, both for him and for his entire company.
Sailing directions from the Crown.
The directions of the Crown also provided that Columbus should avoid the Guinea coast and all other possessions of the Portuguese, which seems to be little more than a striking manifestation of a certain kind of incredulity respecting what Columbus, after all, meant by sailing west. Indeed, there was necessarily more or less vagueness in everybody's mind as to what a western passage would reveal, or how far a westerly course might of necessity be swung one way or the other.