Part 5

Shortly after this invaluable invention Columbus submitted to the king of Portugal his proposition of a voyage of discovery, and succeeded in obtaining an audience to advocate his cause. He explained his views with respect to the facility of the undertaking, from the form of the earth, and the comparatively small space that intervened between Europe and the eastern shores of Asia, and proposed, if the king would supply him with ships and men, to take the direct western route to India across the Atlantic. His application was received at first discouragingly, but the king was at length induced, by the excellent arguments of Columbus, to make a conditional concession, and the result was that the proposition was referred to a council of men supposed to be learned in maritime affairs. This council, consisting of the above-mentioned geographers, Roderigo and Josef, and Cazadilla, bishop of Ceuta, the king’s confessor, treated the question as an extravagant absurdity. The king, not satisfied with their judgment, then convoked a second council, consisting of a considerable number of the most learned men in the kingdom; but the result of their deliberations was only confirmative of the verdict of the first junta, and a general sentence of condemnation was passed upon the proposition. As the king still manifested an inclination to make a trial of the scheme of Columbus, and expressed a proportionate dissatisfaction with the decisions of these two juntas, some of his councillors, who were inimical to Columbus, and at the same time unwilling to offend the king, suggested a process which coincided with their own views, but which was at once short-sighted, impolitic, and ungenerous. Their plan was to procure from Columbus a detailed account of his design under the pretence of subjecting it to the examination of the council, and then to dispatch a caravel on the voyage of discovery under the false pretext of conveying provision to the Cape Verde Islands. King John, contrary to his general character for prudence and generosity, yielded to their insidious advice, and their plan was acted upon, but the caravel which was sent out, after keeping on its westward course for some days, encountered a storm, and the crew, possessing none of the lofty motives of Columbus to support their resolution, returned to Lisbon, ridiculing the scheme in excuse of their own cowardice. So indignant was Columbus at this unworthy manœuvre, that he resolved to leave Portugal and offer his services to some other country, and towards the end of 1484 he left Lisbon secretly with his son Diego. The learned and careful Muñoz states his opinion that he went immediately to Genoa, and made a personal proposition to that government, but met with a contemptuous refusal; at any rate, we are positively informed by Fernando Columbus that his father went to Spain at the close of 1484. A curious surmise is expressed in a note to Sharon Turner’s _History of England in the Middle Ages_, in which the supposition is propounded of the possible identity of Christopher Columbus with a person named Christofre Colyns, who is recorded in some grants in the Harleian MSS. to have been military commandant of Queenborough castle, in the isle of Sheppy, in 1484 and 1485. This man is distinctly stated in the same grants to have held that post in April 1485, and it may be reasonably conjectured that the cessation of his office would not take place till the accession of Henry VII, in August in that year, which leaves but little time for his making his way to Genoa, and subsequently reaching Spain, so as to make his application to that court. Moreover, the impoverished condition in which Columbus presented himself at the convent de la Rabida was very incompatible with the probable pecuniary position of a person, who is described by the grants in question not only to have held the prominent station already mentioned, but to have had a ship given him, with an annuity of £100, and an especial grant of money to enable him to supply himself with habiliments of war. These considerations, combined with the statement of Fernando Columbus just referred to, show that the supposition proposed by Mr. Turner cannot be regarded as tenable.

The interesting story of Columbus’s visit to the Franciscan convent of Santa Maria de Rabida forms the first incident that we find recorded of him after his arrival in Spain. It is well known that the lively interest which the worthy prior of that convent, Fray Juan Perez de Marchena, took in his guest, was the means, through the anticipated influence of his friend Fernando de Talavera, of first leading Columbus to the Spanish court, under the hope of obtaining the patronage of the king and queen. Talavera, who was prior of the monastery of Prado, and confessor to the queen, possessed great political interest. Juan Perez took advantage of this influential position of his friend, and addressed him a letter by the hands of Columbus, strongly recommending the project of the latter to his favourable consideration, and requesting his advocacy of it before the sovereigns. It was in the spring of 1486 that Columbus first ventured to the Spanish court in the hope of gaining a favourable audience. On reaching Cordova, however, he had the mortification to find that Talavera, upon whose influence he mainly relied, regarded his design as unreasonable and preposterous. The court also was at that time so engrossed with the war at Granada, as to place any hope of gaining attention to his novel and expensive proposition out of the question. At length, at the close of 1486, the theory of Columbus, backed as it was by his forcible arguments and earnest manner, gained weight with the most important personage at court next to the sovereigns themselves. This was Mendoza, archbishop of Toledo, and grand cardinal of Spain; who, pleased with the grandeur of the scheme and the fervent but clear-headed reasoning of Columbus, adopted his cause, and became his staunch protector and friend. Through his means an audience was procured with the sovereigns, and the result of the interview was the expression of a favourable opinion, qualified by the necessity of an appeal to the judgment of the literati of the country. But here again Columbus found himself in a painful predicament, which it required all his knowledge and prudence to escape from with safety. He was examined at Salamanca by a council of ecclesiastics, and had to propound opinions which appeared to be at variance with the descriptions contained in the sacred Scriptures, and that at a period when the expression of any sentiment approaching to heresy exposed its owner to the persecution of the newly established Inquisition. The ignorance of cosmography, and the blind conclusions drawn from various misinterpreted texts of Scripture, formed mighty impediments to the pleadings of Columbus, and he began to find himself in danger of being convicted not only of error, but of heresy. One learned man of the number, however, Diego de Deza, tutor to prince John, and afterwards archbishop of Seville, appreciated the eloquent and lucid reasonings of the adventurer, and aiding him with his own powers of language and erudition, not only gained for him a hearing, but won upon the judgments of some of the most learned of the council. Nevertheless, so important a question could not be hastily decided; and the result of the united pedantry and sluggish superstition of the learned body, was to expose the question to protracted argumentation or neglect, while Talavera, who was at its head, and from whom Columbus had hoped to receive the greatest assistance, was too busied with political matters to bring it to a conclusion. At length, in the early part of 1487, the deliberations of the council were brought to a stand-still by the departure of the court to Cordova, and were not resumed till the winter of 1491. During this wearisome period the bustle and excitement of the memorable campaign against the Moors, with its alternations of triumphant festivity, together with the marriage of the princess Isabella to the prince Alonzo, heir apparent of Portugal, were far too engrossing to admit of much attention being given to the schemes of Columbus.[14] At the close, however, of the year 1491, the learned conclave appears to have recommenced its consultations; but upon being called upon by the sovereigns for a decision, a report was returned to Talavera that the scheme was considered by the general vote of the junta too groundless to be recommended. Accordingly Talavera was commanded to inform Columbus that the cares and expenses of the war precluded the possibility of their highnesses engaging in any new enterprises, but that when it was concluded, there would be both the will and the opportunity to give the subject further consideration. Regarding this as nothing better than a courteous evasion of his application, he retired wearied and disappointed from the court, and, but for an attachment which he had formed at Cordova which made him reluctant to leave Spain, he would in all probability have repaired to France, under the encouragement of a favourable letter which he had received from that quarter.

The ensuing period till 1492 was spent in a succession of vexatious appeals to the Spanish court, during which he had to contend with every obstacle that ignorance, envy, or a pusillanimous economy could suggest.

At length having overcome all difficulties, he set sail with a fleet of three ships on the 3rd of August 1492, on his unprecedented and perilous voyage. The ordinary difficulties which might be expected to occur in so novel and precarious an adventure were seriously aggravated by the alarming discovery of the variation of the needle, as well as by the mutinous behaviour of his crew; and his life was upon the point of being sacrificed to their impatience, when the fortunate appearance of land, on the morning of the 12th of October, converted their indignation into compunction, and their despondency into unbounded joy.

With reference to the identity of the first landing place of Columbus in America, I too readily adopted in 1847 the conclusions of Navarrete that the Great Turk, the northernmost of the Turk islands, was the true landfall. I did so under the following process of reasoning. My predecessors in the consideration of the subject had been the learned Juan Bautista Muñoz in 1793, Navarrete in 1825, Washington Irving in 1828, and the Baron Alexander von Humboldt in 1837. It was the opinion of Muñoz that Guanahani was Watling’s Island. Navarrete, as just shown, placed it in the Grand Turk, far to the east, while Washington Irving and Humboldt made it to be Cat Island to the west. Such different conclusions, formed by thoughtful men from an examination of the diary of Columbus and other early documents, caused me to set a great value upon any modern reconnaissance of the locality which might throw a fuller light upon these documents and perhaps show which of the conclusions was correct. Now, it so happened that a communication made a short time previously to the New York Historical Society by Mr. Gibbs, a resident on Turk’s Island, presented several points of evidence strongly confirmative of the correctness of Navarrete’s deductions. The most important of Mr. Gibbs’s arguments were the following. Columbus states in his journal that there were several islands in sight from Guanahani. From the island now called San Salvador, Mr. Gibbs found no land visible. The journal speaks of soundings to the eastward of Guanahani: there were none to the eastward of San Salvador. All the marks wanting at San Salvador were found at Turk’s Island. The journal describes Guanahani as well wooded, and having much water; a large lake in the centre, and two several running streams flowing into the sea. Turk’s Island has about one-third of its surface covered with lakes of salt and fresh water; and a few years before vessels had sailed into one of the ponds. Although the island was now without trees, Mr. Gibbs recollected some remains of a forest existing in his youth. Moreover the journal makes no allusion to the Great Bahama Bank, which must have been passed in approaching San Salvador.[15] As Mr. Gibbs’s personal observation thus appeared to corroborate the deductions of Señor de Navarrete, I yielded to this combination of evidence and so submitted it to the reader. Since that time, however, we have seen other arguments advanced, in which local investigation, as well as the examination of the early documents, have resulted in conclusions as divergent as those which preceded them. Captain Becher, R.N., of our own Hydrographic Office, in his _Landfall of Columbus_, published London, 1856, examining the question from a seaman’s point of view, fell in with the opinion formed by Muñoz in 1793, that Guanahani was Watling’s Island, while Señor de Varnhagen, in his _La verdadera Guanahani de Colon_, published at Santiago, 1864, maintains the unique opinion that it was the island of Mayaguana.

Under these circumstances it has become a duty in me to revise my old opinion; and while the process to which I shall resort will, as I hope, finally settle this much vexed question, it is happily one which will not lay me open to the charge of presumption in giving a judicial verdict where men of such high renown have differed. I congratulate myself on having found a means of enabling the reader to judge for himself by a very simple mode of examination. Annexed is a fac-simile of Herrera’s map of the Bahama Islands, as laid down from the original documents in the handwriting of Columbus and his contemporaries, to which, as official historiographer of the Indies in the sixteenth century, Herrera had exclusive access; and side by side with it is a map, reduced from the Admiralty survey, showing those islands as now known, and with their modern names. I indulge the hope that no one will contest the identification[16] of the respective islands laid down in the old map with those which I have set forth as their correlatives in the modern one, and if so, the Guanahani of Columbus will be plainly seen to be Watling’s Island. The correctness of this identification is not only confirmed, but made easily perceptible, by the fact that certain islands of the series have retained their ancient names without change from the beginning, thus affording stations for comparison which reduce the chances of error to a minimum. This map of Herrera’s is of especial value for the purpose, because while it embodies the information contained in the map of the pilot Juan de la Cosa, who was with Columbus in his second voyage (1493-96); it has the advantage over the latter in having been made nearly a century later, and so contains the entire chain of islands, many of which had not been explored at the time when De la Cosa laid down his map in 1500. For the satisfaction of the reader, however, a reduction of that part of De la Cosa’s map which shows these islands is here given.

Herrera Modern

_Bahama_ _Gᵗ. Bahama Iᵈ._ _Bimini_ } _Andros Iˢ._ _Habacoa_ } _Cabeça de los Martires_ _Cay Sal Bank_ _Yucayoneque_ _Gᵗ. Abaco Iᵈ._ _Cigateo_ _Eleuthera_ _Curateo_ _Little S. Salvador_ _Guanima_ _S. Salvador or Cat Iᵈ._ _Anonymous between Habacoa & Yuma_ _Great Exuma_ _Guanihana_ _Watlings Iᵈ._ _Yuma_ _Yuma_ _Samana_ _Samana_ _Xumeto_ _Crooked Iᵈ._ _Yabaque_ _Acklin’s Iᵈ._ _Mayaguana_ _Mariguana_ _Caycos_ } _The Caycos Group_ _Amana_ } _Canciba_ _Turks Iˢ._ _Abreojo_ _Mouchoir Carré_ _Canaman_ _Silver Plate Bank_ _Macarey_ _Navidad or Ship B._ _Mira por vos_ _Miraporvos_ _Ynagua_ _Gᵗ. Inagua_ _La Tortuga_ _Tortuga_

But while it is hoped that the identity of Guanahani with Watling’s Island will be admitted to be authoritatively established by this comparison, it would be wanting in respect to those who have put forth other claims not to show, I will not say the ground on which these claims were advanced, but rather, for brevity’s sake, the points at which their arguments fail. I adopt this plan on the principle that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. Of all these I fear none occupies so disadvantageous a position as His Excellency Senhor de Varnhagen; for having unfortunately adopted for his _protégée_ an island (Mayaguana), which is represented _together with_ the island of Guanahani both on De la Cosa’s and Herrera’s maps, I regret to say that he seems to me to be _ipso facto_ put out of court, since no reasoning whatever could by any possibility make identical two islands so markedly distinct that several other islands are shown to lie between them. Washington Irving, in advocating Cat Island, or the island at present called St. Salvador, as the genuine Guanahani, adduces an examination of the route of Columbus by Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie of the U.S. navy, but which being principally addressed to the disproval of Navarrete’s Turk’s Island, fails to establish Cat Island as the real landfall in contradistinction to Watling’s Island. In examining this route I observe a startling inaccuracy, which underlies the whole question. It is stated that Columbus describes the island as _very large_. On referring to Columbus’s logbook in Navarrete, I find it, on the contrary, called an “isleta,” or islet, _i. e._ _small_ island, a term which could scarcely be applied to an island forty-two miles long and the loftiest of the Bahamas, which Cat Island is, whereas it would be correctly applied to Watling’s Island, which is only twelve miles long, cut up by salt water lagoons, separated from each other by small woody hills. At the close, reference is made to the identity preserved to Cat Island as San Salvador with that given by Columbus, and a remonstrance against disturbing the ancient landmarks. But this is a _petitio principii_, inasmuch as at the period when the name of San Salvador was first continuously applied to Cat Island, viz., the middle of the seventeenth century, both map makers and sailors were possessed of no better materials, nor even so good, as ourselves, for coming to an accurate determination. Humboldt, in accepting the conclusions of Commander Mackenzie as adopted by Irving, thinks them confirmed by the map of Juan de la Cosa, of which I have given an extract. But here I would observe that the attention of the illustrious philosopher was bent on the point to which Mackenzie’s paper was directed, viz., the disproval of Turk’s Island, and not to a discrimination between Cat Island and Watling’s Island for the true landfall. A glance will show that the imperfectness of the Bahama group in Juan de la Cosa’s map renders it perfectly inadequate for settling so minute a question.

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]