Part 4

Toinard’s correction went to shew that Leibnitz had confounded the name of Guillaume de Caseneuve, surnamed Coulomp, Coulon, or Colon, as the Spaniards called him, with that of the illustrious discoverer. This acknowledgment by Leibnitz of his error might seem to render useless any reference to the letters in question; but as Christopher Columbus is stated by his son, Don Ferdinand, to have been of the same family as the pirate here mentioned, and also to have been engaged at sea with him and his nephew, it becomes interesting to examine what record exists of these illustrious pirates, and to see how far the assertion of Don Ferdinand bears the semblance of correctness. This Caseneuve, or Colon, is called by Duclos, in speaking of the very circumstance which occasioned these letters, in his _Histoire de Louis XI_, “_Vice-Amiral de France, et le plus grand homme de mer de son temps._” And Zurita, in his _Libro 19 de los Anales de Aragon_, calls him, “_Colon, capitan de la Armada del Rey de Francia_.” Garnier, in his _Histoire de France_, thus relates the circumstance: “_Guillaume de Casenove, Vice-Amiral de Normandie, connu dans notre histoire sous le nom d’Amiral Coulon, s’était rendu formidable sur toutes les mers de l’Europe, où il exerçait le métier d’armateur: dans une de ses courses il s’empara de deux riches frégates chargées pour le compte des plus riches négocians de Naples, de Florence, et de plusieurs autres villes d’Italie, qui tout sollicitèrent vivement la restitution de cette importante prise._”

Another exploit, in which this Colon was successfully engaged, was the taking of eighty Dutch ships returning from the herring fishery, in the Baltic, in 1479. Again, another sea-fight related by Marc Antonio Sabelico, in the eighth book of his tenth Decade, is quoted by Don Fernando, where Columbus the younger (described by Sabelico as the nephew, but by Zurita as Francis, the son of the famous corsair), intercepted, between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, four richly laden Venetian galleys, on their return from Flanders. Fernando further asserts that his father (Christopher) was present in this engagement, and that after a desperate contest, which lasted from morning till evening, the hand-grenades and other fiery missiles used in the battle, caused a general conflagration among the vessels, which having been lashed together with iron grapplings, could not be separated, and the crews were compelled to leap into the water to escape the fire. He then goes on to say that “his father, who was a good swimmer, finding himself at the distance of two leagues from the land, seized an oar, and by its aid succeeded in reaching the shore. Whereupon, learning that he was not far from Lisbon, where he knew he should find many natives of Genoa, he went thither, and meeting with a gratifying reception, took up his abode in that city.” The engagement here described is shown by various French historians to have taken place in 1485, and as it is certain that Columbus was in Lisbon prior to 1474 (for in that year he has a letter addressed to him in that city by Paolo Toscanelli, in reply to one written by himself from the same place), this relation by Don Ferdinand assumes a very apocryphal aspect.

With respect to his other statement, that his father was of the same name and family as these two renowned corsairs, it is to be remarked that neither he nor any of the subsequent historians who have claimed this needless honour for the great discoverer, appears to have been acquainted with the real name of the pirates; and as Caseneuve was the strict family name of the latter, and Coulon merely a superadded surname, we may fairly conclude that the claim to consanguinity has no other foundation than the identity in the Spanish language of Columbus’s patronymic with the distinguishing surname of the French vice-admiral.

In the _Chronique Scandaleuse_ (folio 109) this Caseneuve is said to have had a very handsome mansion, named Gaillart-Bois, in the neighbourhood of Notre Dame d’Escouys, in Normandy, at which Louis XI made a stay of two or three days in the month of June 1475, and returned thither also in the following month and stayed there some time. Spotorno suggests that his name of Coulon may have been derived from a place so called in the province of Berri; so that, in addition to the evidence that he was not of the same name or family with Christopher Columbus, there arises strong reason to believe that he was in reality a Frenchman:[11] in which case it becomes probable that an event which has been generally attributed to him, or to his still more renowned relative François Caseneuve, would be with greater correctness ascribed to the Genoese navigator, Christopher Columbus. It appears that, in a letter dated Terra d’Otranto, 2nd October, 1476 (preserved, according to Bossi, in the royal archives at Milan), addressed to the Duke of Milan by two illustrious gentlemen of that city,—the one Guid’Antonio Arcimboldo, and the other Giovanni Giacomo Trivulzio—the following story is related. It says that the captain of the Venetian fleet, when stationed off Cyprus to defend the island, had twice encountered a _Genoese_ ship, called the “Nave Palavisina,” which he had taken to be a Turkish caracca; and in these two engagements one hundred and twenty of the Turks and Genoese had been killed, and in the Venetian squadron thirty had been killed, and two hundred wounded. The captain appears to have had doubts whether he might not have done wrong, and caused offence to the duke of Milan, who might perhaps be an ally of the Genoese: he therefore goes on to say that his only desire had been to meet with his enemies (the Turks) and plunder them; and adds, in confirmation of that assertion, that “a year before he had met with three times as many galleys, who spoke no evil of his good name, and that he found Columbus with ships and galleys, and had cheerfully let him pass by, upon which the cry was raised of ‘Viva San Georgio,’ and nothing further passed between them.” The Columbus here mentioned is shewn, by the cry of “Viva San Georgio,” and by the general tenour of the Venetian captain’s letter, to have been a Genoese, and with a Genoese crew; and as it appears probable that the Caseneuves were Frenchmen, and would in all probability sail with French crews, it leaves strong reason to presume that the Genoese captain here mentioned was Christopher Columbus, who is allowed by all his early historians to have been engaged in the Mediterranean about the period referred to.

His son, Ferdinand Columbus, distinctly states that, “it was in Portugal that the admiral began to surmise, that, if the Portuguese sailed so far south, one might also sail westward, and find lands in that direction.”

The period of Christopher Columbus’s sojourn in Portugal was from 1470 to the close of 1484, during which time he made several voyages to the coast of Guinea in the Portuguese service. While at Lisbon he married Felipa Moñiz de Perestrello, daughter of that Bartollomeu Perestrello to whom Prince Henry had granted the commandership of the island of Porto Santo. For some time Columbus and his wife lived at Porto Santo with the widow of Perestrello, who, observing the interest he took in nautical matters, spoke much to him of her husband’s expedition, and handed over to him the papers, journals, maps, and nautical instruments, which Perestrello had left behind him.[12]

“It was not only,” says Ferdinand Columbus (see _Vida_, cap. 8), “this opinion of certain philosophers, that the greatest part of our globe is dry land, that stimulated the admiral; he learned, also, from many pilots, experienced in the western voyages to the Azores and the Island of Madeira, facts and signs which convinced him that there was an unknown land towards the west.” Martin Vicente, pilot of the King of Portugal, told him that at a distance of four hundred and fifty leagues from Cape St. Vincent, he had taken from the water a piece of wood sculptured very artistically, but not with an iron instrument. This wood had been driven across by the west wind, which made the sailors believe, that certainly there were on that side some islands not yet discovered. Pedro Correa, the brother-in-law of Columbus, told him, that near the island of Madeira he had found a similar piece of sculptured wood, and coming from the same western direction. He also said that the King of Portugal had received information of large canes having been taken up from the water in these parts, which between one knot and another would hold nine bottles of wine; and Herrera (Dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 2) declares that the king had preserved these canes, and caused them to be shown to Columbus. The colonists of the Azores related, that when the wind blew from the west, the sea threw up, especially in the islands of Graciosa and Fayal, pines of a foreign species. Others related, that in the island of Flores they found one day on the shore two corpses of men, whose physiognomy and features differed entirely from those of our coasts. Herrera, perhaps from the MSS. of Las Casas, says, that the corpses had broad faces, different from those of Christians. The transport of these objects was attributed to the action of the west winds. The true cause, however, was the great current of the Gulf or Florida stream. The west and north-west winds only increase the ordinary rapidity of the ocean current, prolong its action towards the east, as far as the Bay of Biscay, and mix the waters of the Gulf stream with those of the currents of Davis’ Straits and of North Africa. The same eastward oceanic movement, which in the fifteenth century carried bamboos and pines upon the shores of the Azores and Porto Santo, deposits annually on Ireland, the Hebrides, and Norway, the seeds of tropical plants, and the remains of cargoes of ships which had been wrecked in the West Indies.[13]

While availing himself of these sources of information, Columbus studied with deep and careful attention the works of such geographical authors as supplied suggestions of the feasibility of a short western passage to India. Amongst these, the _Imago Mundi_ of Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly (Petrus de Aliaco) was his favourite, and it is probable that from it he culled all he knew of the opinions of Aristotle, Strabo, and Seneca, respecting the facility of reaching India by a western route. Columbus’s own copy of this work is now in the cathedral of Seville, and forms one of the most precious items in the valuable library, originally collected by his son Ferdinand, and bequeathed to the cathedral on condition of its being constantly preserved for public use. It contains many marginal notes in his own handwriting, but of comparatively little importance.

The fondness of Columbus for the works of Pierre d’Ailly, a Frenchman, has caused a recent French writer, M. Margry, to put forth the empty pretension that the discovery of America was due to the influence of French teaching, whereas, not only was the _Imago Mundi_ itself a compilation from ancient authors, but the first edition was not printed till many years after Columbus had devoted himself to the purpose which ended in his great discovery, for his famous correspondence with Toscanelli, of which I shall presently speak, occurred in 1474. M. Margry, indeed, _asserts_, but without giving his authority, that in the Columbian Library at Seville are D’Ailly’s treatises _printed at Nuremberg in 1472_. This is in contravention of all the bibliographers—Panzer, Ebert, Hain, Serna Santander, Lambinet, and Jean de Launoy.

The earliest date assigned to the first edition of the _Imago Mundi_, is _about_ 1480 by Serna Santander, 1483 (?) by Lambinet, while Jean de Launoy, in his _Regii Navarræ Gymnasii Parisiensis Historia_, Parisiis, 1677, tom. ii, page 478, distinctly gives it the date of 1490. Humboldt, who had Columbus’s copy in his hands, and who, as the subject was especially his own, cannot be suspected of sleeping over such an important point, adopts De Launoy’s date of 1490, while Lambinet gives the queried date of 1483 from actual collation with another work printed in that year, at Louvain, in the very identical type, by John of Westphalia. In the recently published second volume of the _Ensayo de una bibliotheca de libros españoles raros_, por Don Bartolomé Gallardo, is a list of the books in the Columbian Library, but D’Ailly’s _Imago Mundi_ is not therein mentioned, although his _Quæstiones_, printed much later by Jean Petit at Paris, a far less important book, is inserted. The omission is to be regretted, as we might have hoped for some illustrative comments from the author.

But perhaps it may be suggested that Columbus may have possessed, or seen, a _manuscript_ copy of Pierre d’Ailly at a yet earlier period. We will willingly suppose it for the sake of the argument; but even then the reasoning will fail, for I find that the very portion of the _Imago Mundi_, written in 1410, which is assumed to have supplied the inspiration for the discovery of America, and which Columbus quoted in his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella from Haiti in 1498, is _taken by Pierre d’Ailly, without acknowledgment, almost word for word, from the “Opus Majus,” of Roger Bacon_, written in 1267, a hundred and forty-three years before, as will be seen at page 183 of that work, printed Londini, 1733, fol. See Humboldt, _Examen Critique_, tom. i, pp. 64-70.

Unfortunately Roger Bacon was not a Frenchman, but there remains for M. Margry the consolatory fact that no Englishman is likely to avail himself of the circumstance which I have just enunciated, to claim for his countrymen the honour of having inspired Columbus with the idea which led to the discovery of America, although, by M. Margry’s process of reasoning, he might do so if he would. True, Roger Bacon had been a student in the University of Paris; but this fact did not communicate the character of French inspiration to the ancient authors whose statements he quotes. True also (but this is a circumstance either unknown to or unnoticed by M. Margry), Ferdinand Columbus tells us that his father was principally influenced in his belief of the smallness of the space between Spain and Asia, by the opinion of the Arab astronomer, Al Fergani, or Alfragan, to that effect; and it is further true that Alfragan is further treated of by Pierre d’Ailly, in his _Mappa Mundi_. This is a separate work from the _Imago Mundi_, although it happens to have been printed with it, at a period which we have shown to be posterior to Columbus’s correspondence with Toscanelli, in 1474.

It follows, therefore, that either: 1st, the great explorer obtained his knowledge of Alfragan’s opinion through one of the Arabo-Latin translations, to which he seems to have had recourse during his cosmographical studies in Portugal and Spain (see Humboldt, _Examen Critique_, tom. i, p. 83), in which case French influence is eliminated; or 2ndly, he derived it from a manuscript of Pierre d’Ailly before 1474, which there is no evidence to show; or 3rdly, he derived it from the printed copy of Pierre d’Ailly, in which case the influence of Alfragan on his mind could not have been primarily suggestive, but only corroborative of conclusions to which he had come several years before that book was printed. And in either of the two latter cases, the information supplied by Alfragan would not become French because adduced by a Frenchman, unless we introduce into serious history a principle analogous to the old conventional English blunder of giving to the toys manufactured in Nuremberg the name of “Dutch toys,” because imported through Holland.

The suggestions derived from these works were corroborated by the narratives of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, whose reports of the vast extent of Asia eastward led to the reasonable inference, that the western passage to the eastern confines of that continent could not demand any considerable length of time. The natural tendency of his thoughts to nautical enterprise being thus fostered by the works that he studied, and by the animating accounts of recent adventurers, as well as by the glorious prospects which the broad expanse of the unknown world opened up to his view, we find that in the year 1474 his ideas had formed for themselves a determined channel, and his grand project of discovery was established in his mind as a thing to be done, and done by himself. The combined enthusiasm and tenacity of purpose which distinguished his character, caused him to regard his theory, when once formed, as a matter of such undeniable certainty, that no doubts, opposition, or disappointment, could divert him from the pursuit of it. It so happened that while Columbus was at Lisbon a correspondence was being carried on between Fernam Martins, a prebendary of that place, and the learned Paolo Toscanelli, of Florence, respecting the commerce of the Portuguese to the coast of Guinea, and the navigation of the ocean to the Westward. This came to the knowledge of Columbus, who forthwith despatched by an Italian, then at his house, a letter to Toscanelli, informing him of his project. He received an answer in Latin, in which, to demonstrate his approbation of the design of Columbus, Toscanelli sent him a copy of a letter which he had written to Martins a few days before, accompanied by a chart, the most important features of which were laid down from the descriptions of Marco Polo. The coasts of Asia were drawn at a moderate distance from the opposite coasts of Europe and Africa, and the islands of Cipango, Antilla, etc., of whose riches such astonishing accounts had been given by this traveller, were placed at convenient spaces between the two continents.

While all these exciting accounts must have conspired to fan the flame of his ambition, one of the noblest points in the character of Columbus had to be put to the test by the difficulty of carrying his project into effect. The political position of Portugal, engrossed as it was with its wars with Spain, rendered the thoughts of an application for an expensive fleet of discovery worse than useless, and several years elapsed before a convenient opportunity presented itself for making the proposition.

Meanwhile Columbus was not idle. In the year 1477, he tells us, in a letter quoted by his son, Don Ferdinand, that “_he sailed a hundred leagues beyond the island of Thule, the southern part of which is distant from the equinoctial line seventy-three degrees, and not sixty-three, as some assert; neither does it lie within the line which includes the west of Ptolemy, but is much more westerly. To this island, which is as large as England, the English, especially those from Bristol, go with their merchandize. At the time that I was there the sea was not frozen, but the tides were so great as to rise and fall twenty-six fathoms. It is true that the Thule of which Ptolemy makes mention lies where he says it does, and by the moderns it is called Frislanda._” Whether the Færoe islands [see ante, page xxiii], or Iceland, was alluded to is uncertain, for nothing more is known of the voyage than is contained in this letter. It is moreover supposed by his son, as has been already stated, that he passed a considerable portion of his time at sea, with one or both of the famous pirates of the same name, who were so many years engaged in the Levant; but upon the whole of this portion of his history there rests an impenetrable cloud of obscurity.

About the year 1480, by the joint labours of the celebrated Martin Behaim and the prince’s two physicians, Roderigo and Josef, who were the most able geographers and astronomers in the kingdom, the astrolabe was rendered serviceable for the purposes of navigation, as by its use the seaman was enabled to ascertain his distance from the equator by the altitude of the sun.