A Book of American Explorers. Thomas Wentworth Higginson

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СКАЧАТЬ hands of those savages. His lordship was very joyful at my arrival, and asked me if I would recommence my voyage. I replied that I would, if I might be allowed to take some men to be with me at the extremity of the island until I should find a fair opportunity of putting to sea to prosecute my voyage. The admiral gave me seventy men, and with them, his brother the adelantado, to stay with me until I put to sea, and to remain there three days after my departure. With this arrangement, I returned to the extremity of the island, and remained there four days.

      Finding the sea become calm, I parted from the rest of the men with much mutual sorrow. I then commended myself to God and our Lady of Antigua, and was at sea five days and four nights without laying down the oar from my hand, but continued steering the canoe while my companions rowed. It pleased God, that, at the end of five days, I reached the Island of Española at Cape San Miguel, having been two days without eating or drinking; for our provisions were exhausted. I brought my canoe up to a very beautiful part of the coast, to which many of the natives soon came, and brought with them many articles of food; so that I remained there two days to take rest. I took six Indians from this place, and, leaving those that I had brought with me, I put off to sea again, moving along the coast of Española; for it was a hundred and thirty leagues from the spot where I landed to the city of San Domingo, where the governor dwelt. …

      When that expedition was finished, I went on foot to San Domingo, a distance of seventy leagues, and waited in expectation of the arrival of ships from Spain, it being now more than a year since any had come. In this interval, it pleased God that three ships arrived, one of which I bought, and loaded it with provisions—bread, wine, meat, hogs, sheep, and fruit—and despatched it to the place where the admiral was staying, in order that he might come over in it with all his people to San Domingo, and from thence sail for Spain. I myself went on in advance with the two other ships in order to give an account to the king and queen of all that had occurred in this voyage.

      I think I should now do well to say somewhat of the events which occurred to the admiral and to his family during the year that they were left on the island. A few days after my departure, the Indians became refractory, and refused to bring food, as they had hitherto done. The admiral, therefore, caused all the caciques to be summoned, and expressed to them his surprise that they should not send food as they were wont to do, knowing, as they did, and as he had already told them, that he had come there by the command of God. He said that he perceived that God was angry with them, and that he would that very night give tokens of his displeasure by signs that he would cause to appear in the heavens; and as, on that night, there was to be an almost total eclipse of the moon, he told them that God caused that appearance, to signify his anger against them for not bringing the food. The Indians, believing him, were very frightened, and promised that they would always bring him food in future; and so, in fact, they did, until the arrival of the ship which I had sent loaded with provisions. The admiral, and those who were with him, felt no small joy at the arrival of this ship. And his lordship afterwards informed me in Spain, that in no part of his life did he ever experience so joyful a day; for he had never hoped to have left that place alive. And in that same ship he set sail, and went to San Domingo, and thence to Spain.

IX.—Appeal of Columbus in his Old Age.

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      [To the King and Queen of Spain. Taken from his letter (1503) describing his fourth voyage.]

      Such is my fate, that the twenty years of service through which I have passed with so much toil and danger have profited me nothing, and at this very day I do not possess a roof in Spain that I can call my own. If I wish to eat or sleep, I have nowhere to go but to the inn or tavern, and most times lack wherewith to pay the bill. Another anxiety wrung my very heart-strings, which was the thought of my son Diego, whom I had left an orphan in Spain, and stripped of the honor and property which were due to him on my account, although I had looked upon it as a certainty that your Majesties, as just and grateful princes, would restore it to him in all respects with increase. …

      For seven years was I at your royal court, where every one to whom the enterprise was mentioned treated it as ridiculous; but now there is not a man, down to the very tailors, who does not beg to be allowed to become a discoverer. There is reason to believe that they make the voyage only for plunder, and that they are permitted to do so to the great disparagement of my honor, and the detriment of the undertaking itself. It is right to give God his due, and to receive that which belongs to one’s self. This is a just sentiment, and proceeds from just feelings. The lands in this part of the world, which are now under your Highnesses’ sway, are richer and more extensive than those of any other Christian power; and yet, after that I had, by the divine will, placed them under your high and royal sovereignty, and was on the point of bringing your Majesties into the receipt of a very great and unexpected revenue; and while I was waiting for ships to convey me in safety, and with a heart full of joy, to your royal presence, victoriously to announce the news of the gold that I had discovered, I was arrested, and thrown with my two brothers, loaded with irons, into a ship, stripped, and very ill treated, without being allowed any appeal to justice. …

      I was twenty-eight years old when I came into your Highnesses’ service, and now I have not a hair upon me that is not gray: my body is infirm, and all that was left to me, as well as to my brothers, has been taken away and sold, even to the frock that I wore, to my great dishonor. I cannot but believe that this was done without your royal permission. The restitution of my honor, the reparation of my losses, and the punishment of those who have inflicted them, will redound to the honor of your royal character. A similar punishment also is due to those who have plundered me of my pearls, and who have brought a disparagement upon the privileges of my admiralty. Great and unexampled will be the glory and fame of your Highnesses, if you do this; and the memory of your Highnesses, as just and grateful sovereigns, will survive as a bright example to Spain in future ages. The honest devotedness I have always shown to your Majesties’ service, and the so unmerited outrage with which it has been repaid, will not allow my soul to keep silence, however much I may wish it. I implore your Highnesses to forgive my complaints. I am indeed in as ruined a condition as I have related. Hitherto I have wept over others: may Heaven now have mercy upon me, and may the earth weep for me!

BOOK III.

       CABOT AND VERRAZZANO.

       (A.D. 1497–1524.)

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      SHIP OF THE 15TH CENTURY.

      The first of these extracts in regard to the Cabots may be found in one of the Hakluyt Society’s volumes, entitled “Henry Hudson the Navigator, edited by G. M. Asher,” London, 1860, p. lxix.

      The extracts which follow are from another volume of the same series, entitled “Hakluyt’s Divers Voyages,” London, 1850, pp. 23–26.

      Verrazzano’s narrative is taken from “Hakluyt’s Divers Voyages,” same edition, pp. 55–71. Another translation, by J. G. Cogswell, may be found, with the original Italian narrative, in the Collections of the New York Historical Society, second series, vol. 1.

      CABOT AND VERRAZZANO.

I.—First News of John and Sebastian Cabot.

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      [From a letter written by Lorenzo СКАЧАТЬ