A messenger was at once sent to recall Columbus, and that astute person, grimly smiling at the success of his threat to go to France, prevailed upon his mule to turn back and reënter Santa Fé. He was immediately given an audience with the Queen, and a contract was drawn up in which his utmost demands were recognized. He was to have a tenth of everything, and to rank with the High Admiral of Castile, while instead of his being required to contribute an eighth of the cost of the expedition, it was simply specified that he might make such a contribution if he should feel so inclined. The contract was signed on the 17th of April, 1492, and Columbus’s commission as Admiral and Viceroy was immediately made out and given to him.
[Æt. 56; 1492]
From 1474 to 1492, or precisely eighteen years, Columbus had been seeking for assistance to cross the Atlantic. During that entire period he was without money, without any visible means of support, and without powerful friends. Nevertheless, he finally obtained from Ferdinand and Isabella a full compliance with demands that to nearly every Spaniard seemed wildly preposterous. To what did he owe his success? It seems very plain that it must have been due to his unparalleled powers of conversation. We know that most of those persons with whom he was on familiar terms when he first conceived his scheme soon died, and the inference that they were talked to death is irresistible. Beyond any doubt, these were only a few of his victims. Columbus talked in Portugal until he was compelled to fly the kingdom, and he talked in Spain until the two monarchs and a few other clear-headed persons felt that if he could be got out of the country by providing him with ships, money, and titles, it must be done. We can readily understand why the news that he was actually about to leave Spain, and to undertake a voyage in the course of which it was universally believed he would be drowned, was received by the Spaniards with unanimous delight. Women wept tears of joy, and strong men went into secluded corners and stood on their heads in wild hilarity. The day of their deliverance was at hand, and the devastating career of the terrible talker was nearly at an end.
CHAPTER V.
HE IS COMMISSIONED, AND SETS SAIL.
[Æt. 56; 1492]
On the 12th of May, 1492, Columbus left Santa Fé for Palos, the seaport from which his expedition was to sail. He left his small-boy, Diego, behind him, as page to Prince Juan, the heir of Castile and Aragon. Diego was the son of his lawful wife, and it is pleasant to find that, in spite of this fact, Columbus still remembered him. His favorite son was of course Fernando, who, with his mother, Beatrix, seems to have been sent away to board in the country during Columbus’s absence at sea.
As soon as he arrived at Palos, Columbus called on his worthy friend the Prior, and on the next day the two went to the church of St. George, where the royal order directing the authorities of Palos to supply Columbus with two armed ships, and calling upon everybody to furnish the expedition with all necessary aid, was read aloud by a notary-public. The authorities, as well as the other inhabitants of Palos, were naturally only too glad to do everything in their power to hasten the departure of Columbus; but it was found extremely difficult to procure ships or sailors for the expedition. The merchants very justly said that, much as they might desire to have Columbus drowned, they did not care to furnish ships at their own expense for an enterprise in the interest of all classes of the community. The sailors declared that they were ready to ship for any voyage which might be mentioned, but that it was a little too much to ask them to go to sea with Columbus as their captain, since he would undoubtedly use his authority to compel them to listen to a daily lecture on “Other Continents than Ours,” thus rendering their situation far worse than that of ordinary slaves.
The King and Queen, learning of the failure of Columbus to obtain ships and men, and fearing that he might return to court, ordered the authorities of Palos to seize eligible vessels by force, and to kidnap enough sailors to man them. This would probably have provided Columbus with ships and men, had not the short-sighted monarch appointed one Juan de Peñalosa to see that the order was executed, and promised him two hundred maravedies a day until the expedition should be ready. De Peñalosa was perhaps not the intellectual equal of the average American office-holder, but he had sense enough to appreciate his situation, and of course made up his mind that it would take him all the rest of his natural life to see that order carried out. Accordingly, he drew his pay with great vigor and faithfulness, but could not find any ships which, in his opinion, were fit to take part in the proposed expedition. The people soon perceived the state of affairs, and despaired of ever witnessing the departure of Columbus.
Doubtless De Peñalosa would have gone on for years failing to find the necessary ships, had not two noble mariners resolved to sacrifice themselves on the altar of their country. Martin Alonzo Pinzon and Vincente Yanez Pinzon, his brother, were the two marine patriots in question. They offered a ship and crew, and the magistrates, emulating their patriotism, seized two other ships and ordered them to be fitted for service.
These vessels were under one hundred tons’ burthen each, and only one of them, the Santa Maria, was decked over. In model they resembled the boats carved by small inland boys, and their rig would have brought tears to the eyes of a modern sailor—provided, of course, a way of bringing a modern sailor to Palos to inspect them could have been devised. If we can put any faith in woodcuts, the Santa Maria and her consorts were two-masted vessels carrying one or two large square sails on each mast, and remotely resembling dismasted brigs rigged with jury-masts by some passengers from Indiana who had studied rigging and seamanship in Sunday-school books. The pretence that those vessels could ever beat to windward cannot be accepted for a moment. They must have been about as fast and weatherly as a St. Lawrence “pin flat,” and in point of safety and comfort they were even inferior to a Staten Island ferry-boat.