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LIFE OF COLON, BY HIS SON.

CHAP. XII.— The Admirals Departure from Portugal , and the Conferences he hats,•with Their Catholic Majeflies, King Ferdinand and Queen Ifabel, or Elizabeth.

I WILL now forbear relating how Bartholomew Colon proceeded in England, andwill return to the admiral, who, about the end of the year 1484, dole away privatelyout of Portugal , with his fon James, for fear of being flopped by the King ; for hebeing fenfible how faulty they were whom he had fent with the caraval, had a mind toreftore the admiral to his favour, and defired he fhould renew the difcourfe of his enter-prize ; but not being fo diligent to put this in execution as the admiral was in gettingaway, he loft that good opportunity, and the admiral got into Caftile to try his fortune,which was there to favour him. Therefore leaving his fon in a monaftery at Palos,called la Rabida, he prefently went away to the Catholic King’s court, which was thenat Cordova where being affable and of pleafant converfation, he contracted friendlhipwith fuch perfons as he found moft inclinable to his undertaking, and fitted to perfuadethe King to embrace it; among whom was Lewis de Santangel, an Arragonian gentle-man, clerk of the allowances in the King’s huufehold, a man of great prudence andreputation. But becaufe the matter required to be handled with learning rather thanempty words and favour, their Highneffes committed it to prior of Prado, afterwardsarchbifhop of Granada, ordering him, together with fome cofmographers, to take fullinformation in’this affair, and report their opinions therein. But there being fewcofmographers at that time, thofe that were called together were not fo fkilful as theyought to be; nor would the admiral fo far explain himfelf as that he might be fervedas he had been in Portugal , and be deprived of his reward. For this reafon the anfvverthey gave their Highneffes was as various as were their judgments and opinions. Forfome faid, that fmce in fo many thoufand years as had paffed fince the creation, fo manyfkilful failors had got no knowledge of fuch countries, it was not likely that the admiralfhould know more than all that were then or had been before. Others, who inclinedmore to cofmographical reafon, faid the world was fo prodigious great, that it wasincredible three years fail would bring him to the end of the eaft, whither he de-figned his voyage; and to corroborate their opinion, they brought the authority ofSeneca, who in one of his works, by way of argument, faid that many wife men amongthem difagreed about this queftion, whether the ocean were infinite, and doubted whe-ther it could be failed, and though it were navigable, whether habitable lands would befound on the other fide, and whether they could be gone to. They added, that of thislower globe of earth and water, only afmall compafs was inhabited, which had remainedin our hemifphere above water, and that all the reft was fea and not navigable, but onlynear the coafts and rivers. And that wife men granted it was poffible to fail from thecoaft of Spain to the fartheft part of the weft. Others of them argued almoft afterthe fame manner as the Portuguefe had done about failing to Guinea , faying, that ifany man fhould fail ftraight away weft ward, as the admiral propofed, he would not beable to return into Spain becaufe of the roundnefs of the globe, looking upon it as moftcertain, that vvhofoever fhould go out of the hemifphere known to Ptolemy , would godown, and then it would be impoffible to return, affirming it would be like climbinga hill, which fhips could not do with the fliffeft gale. Though the admiral fufficientlyfolved all thefe objections, yet the more powerful his reafons were, the lefs they under-flood hint through their ignorance ; for when a man grows old upon ill principles inmathematics, he cannot conceive the true becaufe of the falfe notions at firfl imprintedin his mind. In fhort, all of them holding to the Spanifh proverb, which, though itbe contrary to reafon, commonly fays dubitat AuguJUnus, “ St. Auguftin queftions it

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