them both. But again his terms stood in the way.
This is the time, the years that followed, in which the hero stood on his price, that he afterwards spoke of “ full
of cold and hunger, rejected by all the world, with only a poor monk to befriend me.” Sometimes he stayed with the Duke, sometimes he was at court, asking for new interviews and standing by the Admiralship, the vice- royalty, and the ten per cent. At one time Cardinal
Mendoza, “ the third King of Spain,” intercedes for him, and counsels acceptance of his price, at another it is the great lady and courtesan, Beatriz de Babadilla, or the Duke, or Luis de Santangel, the marrano financier, whom even Torquemada could not touch; or finally the powerful order of St. Francis, for which both Columbus (and the queen) had a special devotion. At intervals of life at court and palace he returns to Palos to stay at their monastery, and to turn over their library, seeking for citations from the ancients to use in his next interviews.
Alonzo Pinzon. There was at Palos a family of shipowners and navigators of that name, headed by three brothers, of whom Martin was the eldest, as well as the richest and most powerful. Now Martin also had a project of
exploration; to document himself he had even made a visit to Rome to consult the most celebrated cosmographers. He had returned with a precious map, with Antilia marked on it. His idea was to reach that island, revictual, and go further on, as far as the Zipangu (Japan) of Marco Polo, where as old “ Milione ” says: “ They have gold in the greatest abundance, its sources being inexhaustible, but the king does not allow of it being exported. To this
circumstance we must attribute the extraordinary richness of the sovereign’s palace, according to what we are told by those who have access to it. The
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entire roof is covered with a plating of gold . . Martin seems to have already determined to make the voyage (on his own account: profit or loss), before he met
Columbus. The monks arranged a meeting of the influential and mysterious stranger and the hard-bitten local
magnate. They arrived at some agreement; the terms and reasons for which we know little of beyond the vague accusations made later by Columbus, and the evidence of two witnesses in the lawsuit over the disposition of his property after his death. The first is Arias Pinzon, son of
Martin, who deposed that “ he knows that the said accord was for the halving of all the advantages the queen might give. The said Martin Alonzo showed Columbus the said document (the Italian map) which was a great
encouragement to the Admiral. They came to an agreement and Martin Alonzo gave him money for his next trip to court.” The seaman Alonzo Gallego of Huelva confirms this and says: “ I declare I heard Columbus say to Pinzon, Mr. Pinzon, let us make this voyage together, if we
succeed and by God’s will find land, I promise you by the Royal crown to share with you like a brother.” If anyone asks if this was the truth, what advantage Christopher could have brought to Pinzon, it is the same mystery as that of all his negotiations; a mystery of salesmanship, one of the many irrationalities which are the commonplaces of experience, and only surprise us when they figure in histories.
In January, 1492, Granada, the last citadel of the Moors in Spain, fell; the dream of Christendom came true; Isabella hastened to wipe out a civilisation in advance of her own. It was the moment for the last effort;
Columbus simultaneously feigned a visit to the King of France, called in the influence of all his dupes, and so landed the contract. He was granted 1,000,000 maravedis, which is a little more than 1,200 pounds—the whole
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tion cost 1,167,542 maravedis, about 1,400 pounds, the fundamental debt of the Americas to Europe. Let us avoid a too easy humour about the sum; all this seven years’ ado was not about this nothing, but the extortionate terms of the new Admiral, which would have meant (but for the sly insertion of a lawyer’s cheat in his contract, which
entirely escaped him), that until the years of revolution, the whole of Spanish America would have paid the ten per cent levy to his heirs, and have had to put up with a dynasty of Columbian quasi-emperors.
With this magnificent, though double-bottomed document, Christopher returned to Palos. Now that he had the money and a requisition for ships, his first step was naturally to drop Martin Alonzo. The business code is as immutable as the moral law itself. But a stupid difficulty arose, one of those insignificant omissions for which the most illustrious organizers have to pay: the seamen of Palos refused to serve Columbus. In all his high diplomacy he had left out these humble fellows, who with unanimity considered him a faker, a land-lubber and a bluffer, and conscientiously refused to embark on any ship he captained, even as far as the next port. He was well known in the little town— perhaps he had not been so guarded in his talk and claims
as before the Royal Commissions of experts; there was not a single volunteer.
His first impulse in this humiliating impasse was idiosyncratic : he proposed to make up the crews with convicts. But luckily for him this left untouched the grave problem of navigators, and Columbus was as ignorant as an amateur of the science. So he was forced to make terms with the grinning Pinzons, who agreed to bury the past. They immediately fitted out their two best ships, the Santa , and the Nina, and found another, the Pinta. Columbus is rather hard to understand on the subject of these vessels; 108 TWELVE AGAINST THE GODS
at the beginning of his journal he praises them highly, but later, especially after he had run one of them ashore, he states that they were old, dilapidated and unfit for the sea. The former view is probably correct, for the three brothers took part in the expedition and were perhaps not likely to risk their own skins for meanness or spite. The largest— the size of a large brig—was the Santa Maria ; the Admiral chose this for himself and obtained the friend of the Pinzons, the celebrated Juan de la Cosa, as
navigator and Captain. Martin went on the Pinta with his brother Francisco, and the smallest, the Nina, was
commanded by the youngest of the brothers, Vicente. With them in all 90 sailors, officials of the queen to keep the
score, and an interpreter, a learned Jew named Luis de Torrez, who knew Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Coptic and Armenian. He was to act as intermediary when they arrived at the country of the Great Khan, that is, the Emperor of China.
The preliminaries therefore are shaped by the ambiguity of the Admiral’s aim : where is he steering ? To Antilia, the Indies, or the realm of the Great Khan ? Or to Zipangu, as Pinzon urged ? If it is to Antilia, what is the use of the interpreter ? If to the Indies or the Empire of the Great Khan, how will his privileges of Viceroy advantage him ? For no one in that age could imagine that the heritor of Genghis and Kubla could be forced or persuaded (by ninety seamen !) to allow any annexations.
It is probable that the Admiral himself does not know; but although there is this contradiction in his will—it is
a trident, if not a spear. Westward Ho, and come what may. Perhaps there is a bias to foresee another Madeira— or the seven years’ insistence on the vice-royalty must be a mental tetanus.
In any case they sailed, (3rd August, 1492) at eight in the morning, and instead of setting a course due westward