Chapter III: Part 3

It is needless to dwell here upon the events which followed this discovery, as they are for the most part described in the letter here translated. The main result of the voyage was the discovery of the islands of St. Salvador, Santa Maria de la Concepcion, Exuma, Isabella, Cuba, Bohio, the Archipelago off the south coast of Cuba (which he names the Jardin del Rey, or King’s Garden), the islands of St. Catherine and Hispaniola, on which latter Columbus erected the fortress of La Navidad, and established a colony. Finally, on the 16th of January, he began to steer his course for Spain, and he was already near the Azores when, on the 12th February, the wind came on to blow violently, with a heavy sea, and on the following day a frightful tempest broke upon them, which obliged them to scud under bare poles. The storm continuing with unabated violence, on the night of the 14th of February the two caravels parted company, each following the course where the fury of the tempest drove them. The sailors, giving themselves up for lost, offered up prayers and vows; while the admiral, full of gloomy apprehensions that, after all, his discovery might turn to nought, and his two sons be left destitute, wrote upon parchment the account of the voyage, addressed it to the king of Spain, with a promise, written outside, of one thousand ducats to whomsoever would deliver it unopened. He then wrapped the packet up in waxed cloth, and put it into the middle of a cake of wax, and after inclosing it in a barrel well hooped and stopped up, he threw it into the sea. He also placed on the poop of his own vessel a similar barrel, with the same account enclosed, in order that if the ship went to the bottom the barrel might float, and the narrative be saved. During this period Columbus passed three days and nights without sleep, and with scanty and bad food, so that when, on the 18th, he arrived at St. Mary’s, one of the Azores, he felt his limbs quite crippled with exposure to the cold and wet. There was a small church there, in a solitary place, dedicated to the Virgin. Columbus, with the view of discharging the vows made during the storm, sent half of his people on shore to the church, but the Portuguese Governor of the island took them all prisoners, seized their boat, and would have attacked Columbus’s own vessel, by orders, as he said, received from his court, but for the firmness with which the latter confronted him. Columbus indignantly asserted his own rank and office, showed his letters patent sealed with the royal seal, and threatened the Governor with the vengeance of the Castilian government. After a few days, during which Columbus was driven from his anchorage and had to beat about in great danger, the Governor, who in the interval had thought better of the matter, liberated the prisoners and allowed the caravel to proceed on her course. The state of the weather was most terrible; the sea ran mountains high; the lightnings rent the clouds, and the violence of the winds was such that the vessel was obliged to scud under bare poles, in which state she arrived, at last, in the Tagus, near Lisbon, on the 4th of March. Columbus immediately wrote a letter to the King of Portugal, then at Valparaiso, informing him that he was not come from Guinea but from the Indies, and requesting protection for his caravel, and permission to bring it up to Lisbon. Not only was this granted, but Columbus was immediately invited to Valparaiso and was received by the monarch and his courtiers with the highest honours. There were not wanting, however, some who would gladly have slain him to prevent his going to Castile as the bearer of such great and glorious news. The magnanimity of the king prevented this injustice, and leaving Portugal in safety, on the 13th of March, Columbus arrived on the 15th at the little port of Palos, from whence he had sailed on the 3rd of August in the preceding year. Meanwhile Pinzon, the captain of the other caravel, who in the late storm had been driven into Galicia, wished to anticipate the admiral, but an express order from the court, forbidding him to come without Columbus, made him actually die of spite and chagrin. The reception of Columbus in Spain was such as the grandeur and dignity of his unrivalled achievement deserved, and his entrance into Barcelona was scarcely inferior to a Roman triumph.[17]

Very shortly after his arrival the papal bull was obtained, which fixed the famous line of demarcation, determining the right of the Spanish and Portuguese to discovered lands. This line was drawn from the north to the south pole, at a hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape de Verde islands; the discoveries to the westward were to belong to Spain, and those to the eastward to Portugal.

The seductive adulation of the court and the people did not, however, divert the thoughts of Columbus from the preparations for a second expedition. A stay of five months sufficed to make all ready for this purpose; but these preparations gave rise to a malignant feeling towards him on the part of Juan Rodriguez Fonseca, Bishop of Badajos, which eventually led to such disgraceful ill-usage of the admiral as will remain a stain upon the character of Spain while the name of Columbus exists in the memory of man.

On the 25th September 1493, Columbus took his departure from Cadiz, with a fleet of three large ships of heavy burthen, and fourteen caravels, and after a pleasant voyage reached the island of Dominica on the 3rd of November. The letter of Dr. Chanca, here translated, gives an interesting description of a considerable portion of the events of this voyage, but it is to be regretted that his account terminates so abruptly, and the “memorial” of Columbus to the sovereigns adds but few incidents of moment to the narrative. We should be straining the necessary limits of a mere introduction to these translated documents, were we to undertake to lead the reader through the various history of this eventful period of the life of Columbus. Such a task has been rendered perfectly unnecessary by the much admired work of Washington Irving. Suffice it that we state, that the principal geographical information supplied by this voyage consists in the discovery of the Caribbee Islands, Jamaica, an Archipelago (named by Columbus the Queen’s Gardens, supposed to be the Morant Keys), Evangelista, or the Isle of Pines; and the island of Mona.

He sailed with his fleet finally for Spain on the 28th of April, 1496, and after nearly two months’ struggle against the trade-winds (during which provisions became so reduced, that there was talk of killing, and even eating the Indian prisoners), reached the bay of Cadiz on the 11th of June. The emaciated state of the crew when they disembarked, presenting so mournful a contrast with the joyous and triumphant appearance which they were expected to make, produced a very discouraging impression upon the opinions of the public, and reflected a corresponding depression upon the spirits of Columbus himself. He was reassured, however, by the receipt of a gracious letter from the sovereigns inviting him to the court, which was the more gratifying to him that he had feared he had fallen into disgrace. He was received with distinguished favour, and had a verbal concession of his request to be furnished with eight ships for a third voyage. He was doomed, however, to have his patience severely tried by the delay which occurred in the performance of this promise, which was partly attributable to the engrossing character of the public events of the day, and partly to the machinations of his inveterate enemy, the bishop Fonseca.

It was not till the 30th of May 1498, that he set sail from San Lucar, with six of the eight vessels promised, the other two having been despatched to Hispaniola, with provisions, in the beginning of the year. When off Ferro he despatched three of his six vessels to the same island, with a store of fresh supplies for the colony, while with his remaining three he steered for the Cape Verde Islands, which he reached on the 27th of June. On the 5th of July he left Boavista, and proceeded southward and westward. In the course of this voyage the crews suffered intensely from the heat, having at one time reached the fifth degree of north latitude, but at length land was descried on the 31st of July,—a most providential occurrence, as but one cask of water remained in the ship. The island they came to formed an addition to his discoveries; and as the first land which appeared consisted of three mountains, united at their base, he christened the island, from the name of the Trinity, La Trinidad. It was in this voyage that he discovered terra firma,[18] and the islands of Margarita and Cubagua. His supposition that Paria had formed the original abode of our first parents, is curiously described in our translated letter; and to a careful observer the sagacity of his mode of reasoning is perceptible even in a speculation so fanciful as this. On reaching Hispaniola (to which he was drawn by his anxiety on account of the infant colony), he had the mortification to find that his authority had suffered considerable diminution, and that the colony was in a state of organized rebellion. He had scarcely, by his active and at the same time politic conduct, brought matters to a state of comparative tranquillity, when a new storm gathered round him from the quarter of the Spanish court. The hatred of his ancient enemies availed itself of the clamour raised against him by some of the rebels who had recently returned to Spain, and charges of tyranny, cruelty, and ambition were heaped unsparingly upon him. The king and queen, wearied with reiterated complaints, at length resolved to send out a judge, to inquire into his conduct,—injudiciously authorizing him to seize the governorship in the place of Columbus, should the accusations brought against him prove to be valid. The person chosen was Don Francisco de Bobadilla, whose character and qualifications for the office are best demonstrated by the fact, that, on the day after his arrival in Hispaniola, he seized upon the government before he had investigated the conduct of Columbus, who was then absent; he also took up his residence in his house, and took possession of all his property, public and private, even to his most secret papers. A summons to appear before the new governor was despatched to Columbus, who was at Fort Concepcion; and in the interval between the despatch of the summons and his arrival, his brother, Don Diego, was seized, thrown into irons, and confined on board of a caravel, without any reason being assigned for his imprisonment. No sooner did the admiral himself arrive, than he likewise was put in chains, and thrown into confinement. The habitual reverence due to his venerable person and exalted character, made each bystander shrink from the task of fixing the fetters on him, till one of his own domestics, described by Las Casas as “a graceless and shameless cook,” filled up the measure of ingratitude that he seemed doomed to experience, by riveting the irons, not merely with apathy, but with manifest alacrity. In this shackled condition he was conveyed, in the early part of October, from prison to the ship that was to convey him home; and when Andreas Martin, the master of the caravel, touched with respect for Columbus, and deeply moved at this unworthy treatment, proposed to take off his irons, he declined the offered benefit, with the following magnanimous reply: “Since the king has commanded that I should obey his governor, he shall find me as obedient in this as I have been to all his other orders; nothing but his command shall release me. If twelve years’ hardship and fatigue; if continual dangers and frequent famine; if the ocean first opened, and five times passed and repassed, to add a new world, abounding with wealth, to the Spanish monarchy; and if an infirm and premature old age, brought on by these services, deserve these chains as a reward, it is very fit I should wear them to Spain, and keep them by me as memorials to the end of my life.” This in truth he did; for he always kept them hung on the walls of his chamber, and desired that when he died they might be buried with him.

His arrival in Spain in this painful and degraded condition produced so general a sensation of indignation and astonishment, that a warm manifestation in his favour was the immediate consequence. A letter (here translated), written by him to Doña Juana de la Torre, a lady of the court, detailing the wrongs he had suffered, was read to queen Isabella, whose generous mind was filled with sympathy and indignation at the recital. The sovereigns hastened to order him to be set at liberty, and ordered two thousand ducats to be advanced, for the purpose of bringing him to court with all distinction and an honourable retinue. His reception at the Alhambra was gracious and flattering in the highest degree; the strongest indignation was expressed against Bobadilla, with an assurance that he should be immediately dismissed from his command, while ample restitution and reward were promised to Columbus, and he had every sanction for indulging the fondest hopes of returning in honour and triumph to St. Domingo. But here a grievous disappointment awaited him; his re-appointment was postponed from time to time with various plausible excuses. Though Bobadilla was dismissed, it was deemed desirable to refill his place for two years, by some prudent and talented officer, who should be able to put a stop to all remaining faction in the colony, and thus prepare the way for Columbus to enjoy the rights and dignities of his government both peacefully and beneficially to the crown. The newly-selected governor was Nicolas de Ovando, who, though described by Las Casas as a man of prudence, justice, and humanity, certainly betrayed a want both of generosity and justice in his subsequent transactions with Columbus. It is possible that the delay manifested by the sovereigns in redeeming their promise might have continued until the death of Columbus, had not a fresh stimulant to the cupidity of Ferdinand been suggested by a new project of discovering a strait, of the existence of which Columbus felt persuaded from his own observations, and which would connect the New World which he had discovered with the wealthy shores of the east. His enthusiasm on the subject was heightened by an emulous consideration of the recent achievements of Vasco da Gama and Cabral, the former of whom had, in 1497, found a maritime passage to India by the Cape, and the latter, in 1500, had discovered for Portugal the vast and opulent empire of Brazil. The prospect of a more direct and safe route to India than that discovered by da Gama, at length gained for Columbus the accomplishment of his wish for another armament; and, finally, on the 9th of May, 1502, he sailed from Cadiz on his fourth and last voyage of discovery.

It is painful to contrast the splendour of the fleet with which Ovando left Spain to assume the government of Hispaniola, with the slender and inexpensive armament granted to Columbus for the purpose of exploring an unknown strait into an unknown ocean, the traversing of whose unmeasured breadth would complete the circumnavigation of the globe. Ovando’s fleet consisted of thirty sail, five of them from ninety to one hundred and fifty tons burden, twenty-four caravels of from thirty to ninety tons, and one bark of twenty-five tons; and the number of souls amounted to about two thousand five hundred. The heroic and injured man, to whose unparalleled combination of noble qualities, the very dignity which called for all this state was indebted for its existence, had now in the decline of his years and strength, and stripped both of honour and emolument, to venture forth with four caravels,—the largest of seventy, and the smallest of fifty tons burthen—accompanied by one hundred and fifty men, on one of the most toilsome and perilous enterprises of which the mind can form a conception.

On the 20th of May he reached the Grand Canary, and starting from thence on the 25th, took his departure for the west. Favoured by the trade winds, he made’a gentle and easy passage, and reached one of the Caribbee Islands, called by the natives Matinino (Martinique), on the 15th of June. After staying three days at this island, he steered northwards, and touched at Dominica, and from thence directed his course, contrary to his own original intention and the commands of the sovereigns, to St. Domingo. His reason was that his principal vessel sailed so ill as to delay the progress of the fleet, which he feared might be an obstacle to the safety and success of the enterprise, and he held this as a sufficient motive for infringing the orders he had received. On his arrival at San Domingo, he found the ships which had brought out Ovando ready to put to sea on their return to Spain. He immediately sent to the governor to explain that his intention in calling at the island was to procure a vessel in exchange for one of his caravels, which was very defective; and further begged permission for his squadron to take shelter in the harbour, from a hurricane, which, from his acquaintance with the prognostics of the weather, he had foreseen was rapidly approaching. This request was ungraciously refused; upon which Columbus, though denied shelter for himself, endeavoured to avert the danger of the fleet, which was about to sail, and sent back immediately to the governor to entreat that he would not allow it to put to sea for some days. His predictions and requests were treated with equal contempt, and Columbus had not only to suffer these insulting refusals and the risk of life for himself and squadron, but the loud murmurings of his own crew that they had sailed with a commander whose position exposed them to such treatment. All he could do was to draw his ships up as close as possible to the shore, and seek the securest anchorage that chance might present him with. Meanwhile the weather appeared fair and tranquil, and the fleet of Bobadilla put boldly out to sea. The predicted storm came on the next night with terrific fury, and all the ships belonging to the governor’s fleet, with the exception of one, were either lost, or put back to San Domingo in a shattered condition. The only vessel that escaped was the one which had been freighted with some four thousand gold pieces, rescued from the pillage of Columbus’s fortune. Bobadilla, Roldan, and a number of the most inveterate enemies of the admiral, perished in this tremendous hurricane, while his own fleet, though separated and considerably damaged by the storm, all arrived safe at last at Port Hermoso, on the south of San Domingo. He repaired his vessels at Port Hermoso, but had scarcely left the harbour before another storm drove him into Port Brazil, more to the westward. On the 14th of July he left this port, steering for terra firma, and on the 30th discovered the small island of Guanaga or Bonacca, a few leagues east of the bay of Honduras. He continued an eastern course, and discovered the cape now known as Cape Honduras. While moving along this coast, he experienced one of those frightful tempests to which the tropics are liable, and of which he gives so impressive a description in the letter we have translated. At length, after forty days’ struggle to make as much as seventy leagues from the cape of Honduras, he reached a cape, by doubling which he found a direct southward course open, offering at the same time an unobstructed navigation and a favourable wind. To commemorate this sudden relief from toil and danger, Columbus named this point Cape _Gracias a Dios_, or “Thanks to God.” A melancholy occurrence took place on the 16th of September, while they were anchored off this coast. The boats had been sent up a large river to procure supplies of wood and water, when, on returning, the encounter of the sea with the rapid current of the river caused so violent and sudden a commotion, that one of the boats was swallowed up, and all on board perished. On the 25th of September he reached Cariay, or Cariari, where he stayed till the 5th of October. The next point was the Bay of Carumbaru, which was the first place on that coast where he met with specimens of pure gold. Leaving this bay on the 17th of October, he sailed along the coast of Veragua, and here he was informed by the Indians of the wealthy country of Ciguare, which he supposed to be some province belonging to the Grand Khan, and also of a river ten days’ journey beyond Ciguare, which he conceived to be the Ganges. On the 2nd of November he discovered Puerto Bello, in which harbour he was detained till the 9th by stormy weather; when, continuing his course eastward, he reached, near the end of the month, a small harbour, to which he gave the name of El Retrete, or the Cabinet. It was here that a continuance of stormy weather, in addition to the murmurs of his crew at-being compelled to prosecute an indefinite search, with worm-eaten ships, against opposing currents, determined Columbus on relinquishing his eastward voyage for the present, and to return in search of the gold mines of Veragua. But on altering his course to the westward, he had the mortification to find the wind for which he had long been wishing, come now, as if in direct opposition to his adopted course, and for nine days he was exposed to so terrible a storm that it was a marvel how his crazy vessels could outlive it. At length, after a month’s anxiety and suffering, they anchored, on the day of the Epiphany, at the mouth of a river called by the natives Yebra, but which Columbus named Belem, or Bethlehem. Here a settlement was formed, and here occurred the sad disasters and conflicts with the natives, which he describes in his letter from Jamaica, and in which the faithful and zealous Diego Mendez proved an eminently efficient assistant to his much loved master. The history of this unhappy voyage, the toils and perils of which were aggravated to Columbus by extreme bodily suffering, closes by his reaching Jamaica, where he would in all probability have perished, but for the devotedness and activity of Mendez. The highly interesting description of that brave man’s exploits on behalf of Columbus, has been quoted by Navarrete from his will, and is here translated. When at length, through the agency of Mendez, two ships arrived from Hispaniola to the assistance of the admiral, he was enabled, on the 28th of June, 1504, to leave his wrecked vessels behind him, and start with revived hopes for San Domingo, which he reached on the 13th of August. His sojourn there was not, as may be judged, calculated to afford him satisfaction or pleasure. The overstrained courtesy of the governor offered but a poor alleviation to the rush of rankling feelings which the past associations and present desolation of the place summoned up to his mind.

On the 12th of September he set sail for Spain, and the same tempestuous weather which had all along tended to make this his last voyage the most disastrous, did not forsake him now. The ship in which he came home sprung her mainmast in four places in one tempest, and in a subsequent storm the foremast was sprung, and finally, on the 7th of November, he arrived, in a vessel as shattered as his own broken and care-worn frame, in the welcome harbour of San Lucar.

The two years which intervened between this period and his death present a picture of black ingratitude on the part of the crown to this distinguished benefactor of the kingdom, which it is truly painful to contemplate. We behold an extraordinary man, the discoverer of a second hemisphere, reduced by his very success to so low a state of poverty that, in his prematurely infirm old age, he is compelled to subsist by borrowing, and to plead, in the apologetic language of a culprit, for the rights of which the very sovereign whom he has benefited has deprived him. The death of the benignant and high-minded Isabella, in 1505, gave a finishing blow to his hope of obtaining redress, and we find him thus writing subsequently to this period to his old and faithful friend Diego de Deza:—“It appears that his majesty does not think fit to fulfil that which he, with the queen, who is now in glory, promised me by word and seal. For me to contend for the contrary, would be to contend with the wind. I have done all that I could do: I leave the rest to God, whom I have ever found propitious to me in my necessities.” The selfish and cold-hearted Ferdinand beheld his illustrious and loyal servant sink, without relief, under bodily infirmity, and the palsying sickness of hope deferred; and at length, on the 20th of May 1506, the generous heart which had done so much without reward and suffered so much without upbraiding, found rest in a world where neither gratitude nor justice is either asked or withheld.

His body was in the first instance buried at Valladolid, in the parish church of Santa Maria de la Antigua, but was transferred, in 1513, to the Cartuja de las Cuevas, near Seville, where a monument was erected over his grave with the memorable inscription,—

A CASTILLA Y A LEON
NUEVO MUNDO DIÓ COLON.

In the year 1536, both his body, and that of his son Diego, who had been likewise buried in the Cartuja, were transported to St. Domingo, and deposited in the cathedral of that city. From hence they were removed to Havannah in 1795, on the cession of Hispaniola to the French, and the ashes of the immortal discoverer now quietly repose in the cathedral church of that city.[19]

But injustice, unhappily, was not buried with Columbus in the tomb. It was but one twelvemonth after his death that an attempt was made, and only too successfully, to name the new world which he had discovered, after another, who was not only his inferior, but his pupil in the school of maritime enterprise. In an obscure corner of Lorraine, at the little cathedral town of St. Dié, a cluster of learned priests, who had there established a printing-press under the auspices of René II, Duke of Lorraine, suggested to give to the newly discovered continent the name of the Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, whose nautical career did not commence till after Columbus had returned from his second voyage to the western hemisphere. The first time that the name of Amerigo came into notice was in the year 1504, when Johann Ottmar published at Augsburg the _Mundus Novus_, a description of Vespucci’s third voyage, now extremely rare, embodied in a letter addressed by Vespucci himself to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de’ Medici. In this voyage, which occupied from May 1501 to September 1502, he was in the service of Portugal, and explored the coasts of South America as far as beyond the fifty-second degree. But it was not till May, 1507, when Columbus had been a twelvemonth dead, that the world was informed of four voyages professed to have been made by Vespucci, of which the one just mentioned was only the third, the two former having been made, as he states, in the service of Spain. As the first of these was asserted to have taken place between May 20th, 1497, and October, 1499 [say 1498], and, if correct, would involve the discovery by him not only of the north coasts of South America, but a large extent of the coast of North America also, and that in priority of the claims both of Cabot and Columbus as regards the discovery of the American continent, it has been a matter of keen interest to many to examine minutely the correctness of Vespucci’s claim to having made this voyage.

It would be out of place here to enter into the complicated arguments in which this question is involved; but I have elsewhere shown[20] on how frail a tenure the claim in question is founded. In the same place I have also traced in detail the mode adopted for giving to the New World the name of Vespucci instead of that of Columbus, who, by the exercise of such transcendently superior qualities had earned for himself that honour. I will here sketch it in brief. Vespucci was an intimate friend of the Giocondi family, one of whom, the celebrated architect, Fra Giovanni Giocondi, who built the bridge of Nôtre Dame at Paris, was the translator into Latin of Vespucci’s letter to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de’ Medici describing his third voyage. A young Alsatian, named Mathias Ringmann, who was at this time pursuing his studies in Paris, appears to have made the acquaintance of this Giocondi and to have carried back with him into Alsace an admiration for Vespucci and his achievements, which showed itself in his editing at Strasbourg in 1505, Giocondi’s translation of Vespucci’s letter, accompanied by some laudatory verses in Latin by himself. Now in the neighbouring province of Lorraine, one of the canons of the cathedral at St. Dié, Walter Lud, who was secretary to René II, Duke of Lorraine, had already for many years established a gymnasium or college under the duke’s auspices, and also a printing-press. Ringmann, better known in literature by the pseudonym of Philesius, became professor of Latin at the college and corrector of the press in the printing-office. On the 25th of April, 1507, _a year after the death of Columbus_, one of the members of this little clique, named Martin Waldseemüller, otherwise known as Hylacomylus, produced from this press a small work entitled _Cosmographiæ Introductio_, to which was appended a Latin translation of Vespucci’s four voyages, as described by himself and addressed to Duke René II, although it can be shown by the contents to have been really intended for Pietro Soderini, Gonfaloniere of Florence, who had been Vespucci’s schoolfellow. In my _Life of Prince Henry the Navigator_, I have ventured to suggest the process by which these letters, intended for another, came to be addressed to Duke René, and that suggestion supplies the solution of some riddles, there treated of, which it would be out of place to speak of here. We have seen the connection of the Giocondi with Vespucci. We have seen, also, the connection of Ringmann with the work of Fra Giovanni Giocondi and his interest in the glory of Vespucci. This interest he infuses into the little circle of St. Dié, and we can imagine their pleasure at having the opportunity of blazoning forth to the world, from their own printing-press, a story which would throw so bright a reflection on the obscurity of their secluded valley. But in the little book thus issued, not only were printed for the first time four voyages of Vespucci, but also a suggestion was made that from his name, Amerigo, should be given the name of “Amerige” or “America” to the newly-discovered western world. In September of the same year, 1507, appeared a re-issue of the same book; and in 1509 a new edition of it was issued from the printing-press of Johann Grüninger of Strasburg. In this same year, 1509, three years before the death of Vespucci, the name of America appears, as if it were already accepted as a well-known denomination, in an anonymous work entitled _Globus Mundi_, printed also at Strasburg. But although this work is anonymous, it was my good fortune to detect from the colophon, in which occur the words “Adelpho Castigatore,” that the source of the suggestion of the name of America in the one case, and of the adoption of the suggestion in the other, are either identical or in close proximity, inasmuch as the already mentioned re-issue of the _Cosmographiæ Introductio_ in 1509, has in the colophon, “Johanne Adelpho Mulicho Argentinensi Castigatore.” Now, Mulicho merely means native of Muhlingen, near Strasburg, and this Adelphus, so named, was a physician established in that city, and reviser of both the one work and the other.

The first place in which we find the name of America used a little further a-field, is in a letter dated Vienna, 1512, from Joachim Vadianus to Rudolphus Agricola, and inserted in the _Pomponius Mela_ of 1518, edited by the former. The expression used is “America discovered by Vesputius.”[21] But although this Vadianus, whose real name was Joachim Watt, writes from Vienna in 1512, I find that he was a native of St. Gall, whence in 1508, being then twenty-four years old, he went to the High School of Vienna. His learned disputations and verses gained him the chair of the professorship of the liberal arts at that school, and he subsequently studied medicine, of which faculty he obtained the doctorate. This attachment to the study of medicine recalls to my mind a fact which awakens a suspicion that he may have been a personal friend of John Adelphus, just referred to, and if so, of the little confraternity of St. Dié. Before Adelphus established himself in Strasburg, he had practised as a physician at Schaffhausen, and this at the time when Joachim Watt was a young man, still resident at St. Gall, which is distant from Schaffhausen seventy English miles, a distance which would offer very little hindrance to Swiss intercommunication. Whether this suspicion be worth anything or no, I advance it as a possible clue to yet further researches which may show the process by which this spurious appellation of America became adopted, through the efforts of a small cluster of men in an obscure corner of France.

The earliest engraved map of the new world yet known as bearing the name of America, is a mappe-monde by Appianus, bearing the date of 1520, annexed to the edition by Camers of the Polyhistoria of Julius Solinus (_Viennæ Austr._, 1520), and a second time to the edition of _Pomponius Mela_ by Vadianus, printed at Basle in 1522. The earliest manuscript map hitherto found bearing that name, is in a most precious collection of drawings by the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, now in Her Majesty’s collections at Windsor, to which, from an examination of its contents, I have assigned the date of 1513-14.[22]

I have thus endeavoured to unravel the intricate story of a great and irreparable injustice. No one can deny to Vespucci the credit of possessing courage, perseverance, and a practical acquaintance with the art of navigation; but he had never been the commander of an expedition, and had it not been for the great initiatory achievement of Columbus, we have no reason to suppose that we should ever have heard his name.

“To say the truth,” as has been well remarked by the illustrious Baron von Humboldt, “Vespucci shone only by reflection from an age of glory. When compared with Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, Bartolomé Dias, and Da Gama, his place is an inferior one. The majesty of great memories seems concentrated in the name of Christopher Columbus. It is the originality of his vast idea, the largeness and fertility of his genius, and the courage which bore up against a long series of misfortunes, which have exalted the Admiral high above all his contemporaries.”

A tardy tribute has been at length paid to his memory by his fellow-citizens of Genoa, and the first stone of a monument in commemoration of his achievements was laid in that city on the 27th of September, 1846, and completed in 1862. There is now serious talk of his canonization.

Among the many so-called portraits of Columbus, too numerous to be detailed here, but for elaborate notices of which the reader is referred to the works mentioned at foot,[23] there is not one that can be regarded as unquestionably authentic. It was at the suggestion of my friend M. Ferdinand Denis, the distinguished Librarian of the Ste. Geneviève in Paris, that I have inserted as the frontispiece to this volume a chromolithograph fac-simile of the St. Christopher on the famous map of Juan de la Cosa, Columbus’s pilot, made in 1500. My friend most reasonably suggests that, in this case, St. Christopher represented Christopher Columbus carrying the Christian faith across the Atlantic, and that the face would be a portrait. In corroboration of his idea, I may quote the words of Herrera, whose possession of the Columbian documents enabled him to speak with accuracy. He says, “Columbus was tall of stature, with a long and imposing visage. His nose was aquiline; his eyes blue; his complexion clear, and having a tendency to a glowing red; the beard and hair red in his youth, but his fatigues early turned them white.” The cap and costume seem also less those of the saint than of the sailor. It is to my late revered and dear friend, His Excellency the Count de Lavradio, that I am indebted for procuring the coloured photograph from the original map on his visit to Madrid in 1869. The chromolithograph has been prepared in Berlin.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Society possesses, in my _Early Voyages to Terra Australis_, printed in 1859, the evidence of these discoveries; and in my _Prince Henry the Navigator_, published in 1868, will be seen the procession of these discoveries from the Prince’s efforts.

[2] The _li_ is about one-tenth of the common league.

[3] The most strenuous advocate for the truth of the tradition that America was discovered by Prince Madoc, was Dr. John Williams of Sydenham, who wrote two tracts on the subject in the year 1791 and 1792, which, if betraying a little of the bias of prejudice, yet manifest a degree of research that does great credit to his industry and zeal.

[4] A copy of this map is given in the second vol. of Sastre’s _Mercurio Italico_, Lond. 1789, 8vo., and a photograph of it was published in Venice in 1869 by H. F. and M. Münster.

[5] The work quoted is Cordeyro’s _Historia Insulana das Ilhas a Portugal sugeytas no Oceano Occidental_, Lisbon 1717.

[6] For a demonstration that the discovery of the east coast of North America was made by Sebastian Cabot in 1497, a year before Columbus reached the terra firma, I must refer the reader to a paper of mine read before the Society of Antiquaries on May 5, 1870, and now being printed for the _Archæologia_.

[7] Humboldt has fallen into an error in saying that Joachim Lelewel, in his _Pisma pomniejsze geogr. historyczné_, 1814, has recently called up fresh attention to this Polish pilot. The editor has examined the work carefully from beginning to end, and does not find the name even once mentioned, although the page to which reference is made contains allusions to early discoveries.

[8] A copy of this globe is given in Dr. F. W. Ghillany’s _Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim_, Nürnberg, 1853, 4to.

[9] _Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo_, cap. iv.

[10] “_Siendo yo nacido en Genova”; and “mando al dicho Don Diego, mi hijo, a la persona que heredare el dicho mayorazgo que tenga y sostenga siempre en la Ciudad de Genova una persona de nuestro linage ... pues que della salí y en ella nací._”

[11] Another Caseneuve, probably of this family, is said by De Bry to have been captain of the fourth expedition of the French to Mexico, in the year 1567.

[12] Las Casas, in his _History of the Indies_, tells us distinctly that Columbus derived much information from Perestrello’s maps and papers, and adds that “in order to acquaint himself practically with the method pursued by the Portuguese in navigating to the coast of Guinea, he sailed several times with them as if he had been one of them.” Las Casas says that he learned this from the admiral’s son Diego, adding that “some time before his famous voyage Columbus resided in Madeira, where news of fresh discoveries was constantly arriving, and this,” he says, “appeared to have been the occasion of Christopher Columbus coming to Spain, and the beginning of the discovery of this great world” (America).

[13] Humboldt, _Examen Critique_, vol. ii, p. 246-251.

[14] It was shortly after this period that Bartholomew Columbus was sent by his brother to king Henry VII, to offer his services in a voyage of navigation; the king is said to have received the offer “con allegro volto”—“with a cheerful countenance”; but his acceptance of the proposition was rendered null by Columbus having in the interim attached himself to the service of queen Isabella.

[15] Vide _Athenæum_ for 1846, page 1274.

[16] While agreeing with Captain Becher in the identification of Guanahani with Watling’s Island, I find that officer entirely at issue with the Diary of Columbus in making him anchor near the N.E. end of the island, and then sail round its northern point. In a detailed Paper on this subject, read by me on the 16th of September of this year, at the Meeting of the Geographical Section of the British Association at Liverpool, I had the honour of proving for the first time that the first anchorage of Columbus in the New World was off the S.E. point of Watling’s Island, a position which entirely tallies with all his movements as mentioned in the Diary.

[17] The following remark by Mr. George Sumner was kindly supplied to me by that gentleman in 1847, as an interesting item connected with this period of the history of Columbus:—

From the brilliant description given by Irving and Prescott of the arrival of Columbus at Barcelona, and of his reception there by the Catholic sovereigns, it seemed to me as probable that some contemporary account of this arrival and reception, as well as of the sojourn of Columbus, might be found at Barcelona; and, while there in the spring of 1844, I searched the admirably arranged archives of Aragon, and also those of the city of Barcelona, for such notice, but without any success. I could not so much as find a mention of the name of Columbus.

The _Dietaria_, or day book, of Barcelona, notices the arrival of ambassadors, the movements of the king and queen, and even records incidents of as trifling note as those which in our day serve to fill the columns of a court journal; yet not a word appears in regard to Columbus.

How account for this silence? Is it another evidence of the old feeling of jealousy between the Aragonese and Castilians, of which the student of Spanish history meets so many proofs? Such was the opinion to which I was forced, and such I found also was the interpretation given to it by the intelligent Archevero, who had himself gone over this ground a few years since at the request of Navarrete. The voyage of Columbus was undertaken at the expense and for the benefit of the crown of Castile. It was not to Aragon, but to Castilla and Leon, that Columbus gave a new world, and as the Aragonese did not profit directly by this gift, they saw fit to treat it and its donor with scornful silence.

In one of the notes to the great work of Capmany,—_Memorias sobre la ciudad de Barcelona_, 1789—he gives a list of distinguished men who have enjoyed the hospitality of the city, and among them places the name of Columbus, making no allusion however to any contemporary account of his sojourn there.

In the _Dietaria_ of Barcelona, under date 15th November 1492, is the following entry:—“The king, queen, and primogenito, entered to-day the city, and lodged in the palace of the bishop of Urgil in the Calle Ancha.” This is followed by a description of the festivities which followed. “1493, 4th February.—King and queen went to Alserrat. 14th—King and queen returned to Barcelona.”

As there appears no notice of the king having changed his abode after taking possession of the palace in the Calle Ancha, it was probably there that Columbus recounted to Isabella his adventures and his success. The American pilgrim may still, in the beautiful Alcazar of the Moorish kings, recall the figure of the discoverer of his land, standing in the presence of the Catholic sovereigns of Spain;—in the cotton-spinning town of Barcelona the besom of modern improvement has long since swept away the palace of the bishop of Urgil.

[18] It is well known that Columbus was preceded in the discovery of terra firma by John Cabot in 1497.

[19] I am indebted to Mr. George Sumner for the following copy of the inscription on the tomb of Fernando Columbus, in the pavement of the cathedral of Seville, and for the note which accompanies it:—

“Aqui yaze el M. Magnifico S. D. Hernando Colon, el qual aplicó y gastó toda su vida y hazienda en aumento de las letras, y juntar y perpetuar en esta ciudad todos sus libros de todas las ciencias, que en su tiempo halló y en reducirlo a quatro libros. Falleció en esta ciudad a 12 de Julio de 1539 de edad de 50 años 9 meses y 14 dias, fue hijo del valeroso y memorable S. D. Christ. Colon primero Almirante que descubrió las Yndias y nuevo mundo en vida de los Cat. R. D. Fernando y D. Ysabel de gloriosa memoria a 11 de Oct. de 1492 con tres galeras y 90 personas, y partió del puerto de Palos a descubrirlas a 3 de Agosto antes, y Bolvió a Castilla con victoria a 7 de Maio del Año Siguiente y tornó despues otras dos veces ā poblar lo que descubrió. Falleció en Valladolid à 20 de Agosto de 1506 años.

“ROGAD A DIOS POR ELLOS.”

Beneath this is described, in a circle, a globe, presenting the western and part of the eastern hemispheres, surmounted by a pair of compasses. Within the border of the circle is the same inscription as that which was placed over Columbus himself at the Cartuja, with the exception of the word “mundo” being placed before, instead of after, the word “nuevo”.

Throughout all Spain I know of no other inscription to the memory of Columbus. At Valladolid, where he died, and where his body lay for some years, there is none that I could discover, neither is there any trace of any at the Cartuja, near Seville, to which his body was afterwards transferred, and in which his brother was buried.

It is a striking confirmation of the reproach of negligence, in regard to the memory of this great man, that in this solitary inscription in old Spain, the date of his death should be inaccurately given.

G. S.

[20] See _Life of Prince Henry the Navigator_, pp. 367 to 379.

[21] “Americam a Vespuccio repertam.”

[22] See _Archæologia_, vol. xl, 1866.

[23] Carderera (Valentin): Informe sobre los retratos de Cristóbal Colon, su trage y escudo de Armas. Imprenta de la Real Academia de la historia. Madrid. 1851. Small 4to.

Feuillet de Conches (F). “Portraits de Christophe Colomb,” extrait de la Revue contemporaine, T. xxv, 95ᵐᵉ livraison in 8ᵒ, and in the “Revue Archéologique,” an article by Mr. Isidore de Lœwenstern, on the Mémoires of MM. Jomard et Carderera respecting the portraits of Columbus.

A POEM

COMPOSED BY GIULIANO DATI IN 1493,

[FROM COLUMBUS’S FIRST LETTER,]

And sung in Florence to announce the discovery of the New World.

LA LETTERA DELLISOLE CHE HA TROVATO NUOVAMENTE IL RE DISPAGNA.

Omnipotente idio, che tucto regge,
donami gratia chio possa cantare
allaude tua & di tu sancta legge,
cosa che piaccia achi stara ascoltare
maxim al popol tuo & alla tua grege,
el qual nō resta mai magnificare,
como al ꝕsēte ha fatto nella Spagna,
delle isole trovate cosa magna.

Io ho gia lecto degli antichi regi
& principi signori stanti in terra,
del re della soria & facti egregi,
& lebactaglie loro & la gran guerra,
& delle giostre gli acquistati pregi
di Bello lessi & selmio dir nō erra,
de persi, medi, & degli ateniensi,
Dāfinione & gli altri egregi immēsi.

Et de lacedemoni le grandi entrate,
di Labores di Oreste & daltri assai,
del Principe Gisippo cose late,
come si legge so che inteso lhai,
di Tholomeo piu cose smisurate,
& del gran Faraone come saprai.
di judici & de regi de giudei,
che afaccia parlavano con lei.

Et de latini lessi, & degli albani,
& di quel fiesolano Re Atalante,
de regi & consolati de romani,
& de tribuni lessi cose tante,
dedeci viri electi tanti humani,
& degli īmperadori potrei dir quāte
cose chi tengo nel mio pecto fisse.
ꝓ che sarian nel dir troppo plisse.

che sio volesse tucti efacti dire
disopra nominati & altri assai,
certo farei latua mente stupire
maximi alcuni che nō ludiron mai,
q̃ste cose alte degne magne et mire
che se tu leggi tu letroverrai
invernacula lingua & ī latino,
si come narra un decto dagostino.

Ma chi potessi leggere nel futuro
duno Alexādro magno papa sexto,
della sua creatione il modo puro,
grato a ciascūo anessū mai molesto,
& del primanno suo il magno muro,
che nō glipuo nessuno esser infesto
sesto alexādro pappa borgia ispano,
justo nel giudicare & tucto humano.

Et chi leggesi poi del sua Ferrādo
christianissimo rege xꝕiani
che lisabella tiene al suo comādo,
unica sposa sua, che nelle mani
tanti reami indota allui donando,
gliha dati ītendi ben cō pēsier sani,
che glie re della spagna & di castella
& di leon tolecto villa bella.

Simile re di cordube chiamato,
& poi dimutia re mipar che sia
& digalitia re incoronato,
dalgarbe re & tienla in sua balia,
re digranata sai che conquistato
diragona signor & divalēzia pia
conte mipar che sia dibarzalona,
& disicilia re isola buona.

Di quāta altura principe mipare
& disardigna tien la signoria,
& di corsica sifa simil chiamare,
di q̃lla parte che glha in sua balia
& conte di serdeina appellare,
& dirosello conte par che sia
simile re mi pare che dimaiorica,
l’altro reame e poi della minorica.

Et poi signor dibiscaia & molina,
delalsesiras signor chiamato,
dellasturias terra peregrina,
ꝓ tucto il mondo q̃sto e nominato,
tucto fedele della legge divina,
chi altro crede e mal dallui trattato
come sivede che nō e mai satio,
dimarrani giudei far ogni stratio.

Pero il signore lha semꝕ īvicto facto,
che si puo uno agusto nominare,
ogni sua lega triegua legge o pacto,
mai nō sividde dallui maculare
lui nō derise mai savio ne macto
limosine per dio sempre fa fare
della chiesa zeloso a tucte lhore
come fedel, xꝕiano, & pio signore.

Come mōstra lamagna ābascieria,
che glha mandato adar lubidiēza
al suo sesto Alexādro anima pia
che mai sivide tal magnificenza
in tucte cose la sua signoria
dimōstrā aver fra gli altri grā potēza
ī q̃sti magni ābascidor sispechi
chi nol credessi nōcti ꝕsti orecchi.

Se io volessi e sua titoli dire,
o auditore io ti potrei tediare,
de sua reame io ti farei stupire,
sol que che lisabelela volse dare
indota a q̃sto Re o questo sire,
quando luso ꝓ marito pigliare
q̃sta isabella e dispagna Regina,
honesta doña savia & peregrina.

Hor vo tornar almio primo tractato
dellisole trovate incognite a te
in q̃sto anno presente q̃sto e stato
nel millequatrocento novātatre,
uno che xꝕofan colōbo chiamato,
che e stato in corte del prefato Re
ha molte volte questo stimolato,
el Re ch’cerchi acrescere il suo stato.

Dicendo, signor mio, io vo cercare
ꝓ che comprēdo che ce molta terra
che nostri antichi nō seppō trovare
& spero dacquistarle senza guerra,
se vostra signoria si vuol degnare
ajuto darmi che so que non erra
lamente mia spera nel signore
chimbrieve cidara rengo & honore.

Voi mectetē la roba io la persona
non sara vostra signoria disfacta,
ispesse volte la fortuna dona
ꝓ picol prezo assai & non e macta
che sua sperāza tucto il mōdo sprona
savio e colui che dicercar sadacta
ꝑ che dice elvāgelio ī legge nuova
che chicercādo va spesso truova.

Hō poi ch’ lebbe ilre piu volte udito
& facto carisposta sorridendo
xꝕofano ripigliando come ardito
q̃sto āno il re secōdo ch’ io cōprēdo
prese di dargli aiuto per partito
& disse il tuo sperare oggi cōmēdo
piglia una nave cō due carovelle
di q̃ste mie armate le piu belle.

Et comādo de poi che gli sia dato
danari & roba q̃l che fa mestiero,
& poi dimolta gēte acompagnato
divotamente & cō buō pensiero,
al sommo dio che fu racomandato,
& alla madre sua & sancto piero,
& prese q̃ste cose, & poi licentia
dalre & laregina & sua clementia.

Et navico piu giorni per perduto,
cō pena, con affanni & grāde stento,
pensa che na in mare no e mai tuto,
ma semꝕ cōbactēdo ī acqua & uēto
ꝓdesi spesso elguadagno eltrebuto,
& nōgli gioua dire io menepento
ma come piacqꝫ adio ch’ mai nōerra
in trentatre giornate pose in terra.