Having satisfied the curiosity of the Portuguese court and people, Columbus set sail from the Tagus on the 13th of March, and two days afterwards entered the small harbour of Palos, having been seven months and a half absent on the most important maritime expedition recorded in history. Palos that day was the scene of extraordinary excitement and rejoicings, not unmingled, however, with doubts. Almost every family in the place had some relative or friend among the navigators. Great anxiety prevailed as to the safety of the crew of the wrecked caravel, who had remained to form the settlement at Hispaniola; and of the Pinta, which had been separated from Columbus in a storm the expedition had encountered before it reached St. Mary’s. But the fears for the safety of the Pinta were soon removed. In the afternoon of the same day on which Columbus arrived, and while the church and convent bells were still pealing forth a welcome to the great discoverer, Martin Alonzo Pinzon entered the river with his ship.
Great rejoicings.
Slavish, indeed, was the welcome offered by the people to the great navigator, whose plans they had so recently rejected as mischievous and idle dreams. The whole population joined him at their principal church in offering thanks to God for a discovery, in the way of which they had themselves thrown innumerable difficulties. Wherever Columbus passed, the streets resounded with acclamations; and in that same place where he first came, a poor wanderer, craving water and bread at the gate of their convent for his famishing child, and where afterwards he had been hooted and despised, he was welcomed with honours rarely rendered to even monarchy itself.
He proceeds to Seville and Barcelona.
Columbus, having despatched a letter to the king and queen, then at Barcelona, proceeded to Seville to await their orders, taking with him six of the natives whom he had brought to Spain. The letter announcing his discovery had produced an extraordinary sensation, not merely at the Spanish court, but in every part of Europe whither the news had spread. To Spain, then approaching the plenitude of her power, this discovery, following so closely on the conquest of Granada, was considered to be a special mark of Divine favour to the nation which had subdued the Moors and extended the Christian faith. Throughout the whole country it was hailed with the most enthusiastic delight, and the journey of Columbus from Seville to Barcelona was one continued triumph. Every preparation had been made at the latter city to give him a solemn and magnificent reception. Surrounded by a brilliant cavalcade of courtiers and Spanish chivalry, and followed by a long retinue, of which the Indians formed a part, Columbus marched in procession through streets crowded with people, and lined by houses gaily decorated, to the chief square of the city, where the sovereigns, under a rich canopy, awaited his arrival. The principal nobility of Castile, Valentia, Catalonia, and Aragon, were there with Ferdinand and Isabella, impatient to behold and welcome the great discoverer, whose majestic and venerable appearance enhanced their admiration and enthusiasm. When he approached, the sovereigns rose as if receiving a person of the highest rank. Briefly delivering an account of his voyage, Columbus displayed the strange Indians, animals, and plants, with a few specimens of native gold, and some barbaric ornaments he had brought from the new found country; and prayers were then offered by the whole of that brilliant assembly, in which the king and queen on their knees solemnly joined.
Orders for a fresh expedition.
A discovery so great and astounding soon spread far and wide, and embassies and travelling merchants diffused the tidings in every land. Sebastian Cabot describes the first receipt of the news in London, and the talk and admiration created in the court of Henry VII., as if it was “a thing more divine than human.”[758] Indeed, the whole civilized world, filled with wonder and delight, rejoiced in an event which opened out a new and unbounded field for inquiry and enterprise, although no one had an idea of the real importance of the discovery, nor that it was an entirely new and distinct portion of the globe which had been discovered. Nor, indeed, was any time lost in securing to the crown of Spain these valuable acquisitions. Arrangements were at once made to fit out a fleet on an extensive scale, and the royal injunctions, though highly arbitrary, were now obeyed with the utmost alacrity. A fleet of seventeen vessels, large and small, were soon ready. The best pilots were chosen for the service, while skilled husbandmen, miners, and other mechanics, were engaged for the colonies it was intended to found. Horses for military purposes and for stocking the country, together with cattle and domestic animals of various kinds, were likewise provided, as well as seeds of almost every description, and plants, including vines and sugar canes; nor was there wanting an abundant supply of trinkets, beads, hawks’-bells, looking-glasses, and other showy trifles, to induce traffic among the natives. The most exaggerated accounts spread of the fabulous wealth of the territories, and adventurers of every kind, from the highest to the very lowest, were equally eager to join in the expedition. Some were doubtless inflamed with the mere hope and lust of wealth, while others less selfish in their motives pictured to themselves a wide field for the display of their military genius and skill, in what did not seem impossible to them, the actual conquest of the grand Khan and the capture of the fabled land of Cathay.
Its extent, and departure, 25th Sept., 1493.
The number of persons permitted to embark in the expedition had been originally limited to one thousand, but the applications from volunteers were so numerous that fifteen hundred persons were eventually enrolled; and early on the morning of the 25th of September, 1493, they sailed from the bay of Cadiz in three large vessels and fourteen caravels. No accounts of the size of any of these vessels have been transmitted to posterity except the brief statement made in a note by Washington Irving,[759] from the writings of Peter Martyr, who says that they “were carracks (a large species of merchant vessel, principally used in the coasting trade), of 100 tons.” But the carracks of the commercial marine of the Venetians and Genoese of those days were of very considerable dimensions, in some few instances from 1500 to 2000 tons, and were employed on the most distant voyages then known. Of one of these, Charnock,[760] as we have seen, has given a drawing; she is a full-rigged ship, well equipped, and evidently not less than 1500 tons register, taken from a painting at Genoa, dated 1542, so that it may be fairly presumed that in his second voyage the largest of the vessels of Columbus was far beyond 100 tons. Considering that he had with him fifteen hundred persons, some of them members of the best families of Spain, with large quantities of stores and merchandise, it may be safely assumed that the “three large vessels” were carracks of from 400 to 600 tons; while the fourteen caravels may have been craft ranging from 250 down to 70 tons, as Columbus on more than one occasion had urged the necessity of having small vessels, of light draft of water, adapted for the survey of the coasts, or for river navigation.
Reaches Dominica, 2nd Nov., 1493, and Santa Cruz, 14th Nov.