from the Conquest, to the Death oj A. Mary 1,
{To try
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La fes.
s so bean
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the third of Au-
(4.) That he should have the Liber-ty of trying certain Causes, &c. byhimlelf, or his Deputy : And,
(5.) That he should be allowed tocontribute an eighth Part of the Chargeof every Expedition, and receive theeighth Part of the neat Profit arrisingfrom every Voyage.
£^f um ' >as The Agreement being signed, Co-< Iambus departed from Court, on the
^ Te parati- twelfth of May, and went to the Port ofhji Pahs, from whence he proposed toPotion. 4 aiI. He had Orders to that Town, tofurnish him with two Caravels. Hefitted out another Ship to be Admiral,and called her the St. Mary. One ofthe Caravels, called the Pint a, wascommanded by Captain Martin AlonjoPinzon, and hisBrother, Francis Marti-nez Pinzan, wasMaster. The other Cara-vel, called La Nina, had Latin, or trian-gular Sails, which, however, was after-wards altered, and was commanded byVincent Yanez Pinzon, Captain andMaster. So inconsiderable were thePreparations for this Grand Expedition;for the Outset of which, a Sum, notexceeding Two Thousand Guineas, wasJj e , only allotted.
£ ^first 11 t ^ lc Year 1492.
^P^itfon. £ u .ft> about half an Hour before Sun-rising, Columbus set Sail from Pahs, asmall Town, in the Kingdom of Anda-lusia, with the Title, confer’d upon himby Ferdinand and Elizabeth, of Admi-ral of the Seas of all those Countries heshould discover and conquer, as hasbeen observed above. He left the fa-mous Herculean Streights behind him,and, disdaining their Non-plus-ultra,launched into the vast Ocean, with noless Confidence, for his own Part, thanAdmiration of those, who saw him leavethe Shoar, and steer a Course never be-^ fore attempted. Touching at the Island
theses at of Gran Canaria, where, he furnishedhimself with severalNecessaries,he sailed¥ e s f0> the fr° m ^ence again, on the'Marti tember, having but
his Company, and Provisions for a Year.After some Day’s Sailing, the Admiralwas sensible he was near the Fropick ofCancer, and under the Lorrid Zone.Here hisMen, impatient of Heats, whichthey had never before experienced, andtired withfeing nothing but the vast O-cg an, began to murmur, and from thenceforward they led him an uneasy Life.Hie Courage of the great Columbus was,nevertheless, so unsurmountable, andhis Prudence so singular, that some-times dissembling, and sometimes tak-Numb. V.
first of Sep-ninety Persons in
ing no Notice of what he heard, talk-ing now with one, and then with ano-ther in Private, and, at other Times,comforting them all, in general, bygiving them an Account of his wellgrounded Speculations, he so fed themup with Hopes andExpectations, (of theSuccess of which he himself had not theleast Distrust) that he brought his Pro-ject at last to a happy Issue. To give aJournal of this Voyage would swell thisDigression to too great a Length, Ishall, therefore, only mention one Par-ticular.
On the fourteenth of September, beingabout two Hundred Leagues to theWestwaad, from the Island of Ferro,about Night-fall, the Admiral observed'that the Needles varied a Point Wefl-ward, and somewhat more about Breakof Day. This Variation had never be-fore been observed by anyMan,and was,therefore, Cause of Admiration. ThreeDays after, having run a HundredLeagues farther, on the fame Course,he found they varied, at Evening, twoPoints, and in the Morning pointed ex-actly upon the North Star.
On the eleventh of OBober, the Ad-miral was blessed with the Hopes of be-ing soon delivered from this terriblePersecution of his own People, by mani-fest Signs of Land; at a Time when hecould not have withstood their mutinousTemper much longer. The first Thingthey saw was a Bough of a Tree, orThorn-bufh, new cut, with it’s Fruit onit, and soon after they discovered somePieces of Wood floating, a green Rush,a Cane and a Staff, and took up anotherartificially carved; all clear Marks thatLand was not far off. They all nowlooked out, with great Attention, forLand, in Hopes of the Reward promis-ed to the first Discoverer, which was aRent of ten Thousand Maravedies ; ButColumbus, who was the first Projector ofthe Expedition, had the Happiness ofmaking this Discovery. About two Hoursbefore Midnight, sitting on the Poop, heperceived a Light, which he immediate-ly shewed to two of his Officers, andloon afterwards he observed that itchanged Place ; For, as it,appeared af-terwards, it was a Light carried fromone House to another. Towards thisLight they immediately steered theirCourse, and about two Hours afterMidnight they saw the Land itself.
A s soon as Day broke they landed,in a Boat well armed, the Admiral car-rying the Royal Standard spread, andX the
79
His Menmurmur,andbegin to mu-tiny.
The Varia-tion of theCompassfirst observ-ed.
Several To-kens of Landdiscovered ■
The firstLandjeen :
The Admi-ral lends