The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Volume II)

decad. i. lib. iv. cap. 12. Muñoz, Hist. N. Mundo, part unpublished.
    [96]: Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. ii. cap. 2. Muñoz, part unpublished.
    [97]: Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. ii. cap. 2 Muñoz, part unpublished.
    [98]: Hakluyt’s Collection of Voyages, vol. iii. p. 7. Vol. II.-9
    [99]: Lafiteau, Conquetes des Portugais, lib. ii.
    [100]: Robertson, Hist. America, book ii.
    [101]: Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. ii. cap. 3.
    [102]: Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. ii. cap. 1, MS.
    [103]: Las Casas, Hist. Ind. lib. ii. cap. 3, MS.
    [104]: Herrera, Hist. Ind., decad. i. lib. iv. cap. 12.
    [105]: Muñoz, part inedit. Las Casas says the fleet consisted of thirty-two sail. He states from memory, however; Muñoz from documents.
    [106]: Muñoz, H. N. Mundo, part inedit.
    [107]: Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. ii. cap. 3, MS.
    [108]: Garibay, Hist. España, lib. xix. cap. 6. Among the collections existing in the library of the late Prince Sebastian, there is a folio which, among other things, contains a paper or letter, in which is a calculation of the probable expenses of an army of twenty thousand men, for the conquest of the Holy Land. It is dated in 1509 or 1510, and the handwriting appears to be of the same time.
    [109]: Columbus was not singular in his belief; it was entertained by many of his zealous and learned admirers. The erudite lapidary, Jayme Ferrer, in the letter written to Columbus in 1495, at the command of the sovereigns, observes: “I see in this a great mystery: the divine and infallible Providence sent the great St. Thomas from the west into the east, to manifest in India our holy and Catholic faith; and you, Señor, he sent in an opposite direction, from the east into the west, until you have arrived in the Orient, into the extreme part of Upper India, that the people may hear that which their ancestors neglected of the preaching of St. Thomas. Thus shall be accomplished what was written, in omnem terram exibit sonus eorum .” … And again, “The office which you hold, Señor, places you in the light of an apostle and ambassador of God, sent by his divine judgment, to make known his holy name in unknown lands.”—Letra de Mossen, Jayme Ferrer, Navarrete, Coleccion, tom. ii. decad. 68. See also the opinion expressed by Agostino Giustiniani, his contemporary, in his Polyglot Psalter.
    [110]: Las Casas, lib. ii. cap. 4. Las Casas specifics the vicinity of Nombre de Dios as the place.
    [111]: Navarrete, Colec. Viag., tom. ii. p. 145.
    [112]: A manuscript volume containing a copy of this letter and of the collection of prophecies is in the Columbian Library, in the Cathedral of Seville, where the author of this work has seen and examined it since publishing the first edition. The title and some of the early pages of the work are in the handwriting of Fernando Columbus; the main body of the work is by a strange hand, probably by the Friar Gaspar Gorricio, or some brother of his Convent. There are trifling marginal notes or corrections, and one or two trivial additions in the handwriting of Columbus, especially a passage added after his return from his fourth voyage, and shortly before his death, alluding to an eclipse of the moon which took place during his sojourn in the island of Jamaica. The handwriting of this last passage, like most of the manuscript of Columbus which the author has seen, is small and delicate, but wants the firmness and distinctness of his earlier writing, his hand having doubtless become unsteady by age and infirmity.
    This document is extremely curious as containing all the passages of Scripture and of the works of the fathers which had so powerful an influence on the enthusiastic mind of Columbus, and were construed by him into mysterious prophecies and revelations. The volume is in good preservation, excepting that a few pages have been cut out. The writing, though of the beginning of the fifteenth century, is very distinct and legible. The library-mark of the book is Estante Z. Tab. 138, No. 25.
    [113]: Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. ii. cap. 4.
    [114]: These documents lay unknown in the Oderigo family until 1670, when Lorenzo Oderigo presented them to the government of Genoa, and they were deposited in the archives. In the disturbances and revolutions of after times, one of these copies was taken to Paris, and the other disappeared. In 1816 the latter was discovered in the library of the deceased Count Michel Angelo Cambiaso, a senator of Genoa. It was procured by the king of Sardinia,