WESTWARD HO I 



touch with Queen Isabella's late confessor who persuaded her to hear 

 him and finally he received his Royal backing in 1492. His aim was to 

 sail to the West until he discovered Japan and to open up trade with 

 the Khan of Cathay to whom he carried a letter of introduction. The 

 town of Palos was ordered to find him two ships and the county gaols 

 were scraped to find him crews, but even the indemnity offered was not 

 sufficient to persuade men to volunteer. Finally the expedition sailed, 

 consisting of Columbus's flagship the Santa Maria of one hundred tons 

 and fifty-two men, Martin Pinzon's ship the Pinta of fifty tons and 

 eighteen men, and the Nina of forty tons and the same crew, which was 

 commanded by Vicente Yanez Pinzon. 



The fieet sailed in August, 1492, and was forced to put into Tenerife 

 to replace a rudder lost by the Pinta. Here news came that three 

 Portuguese men-of-war were on the look-out for him so that he pro- 

 ceeded with all speed. The greater part of the ships' companies had 

 never been afloat and when they got into the Sargasso Sea and sailed 

 through miles of w^eed their spirits fell to zero and things got so bad that 

 Columbus had to keep a double log, one for the benefit of the crew and 

 one for himself. As their method of judging the ship's speed was for a 

 man to drop some buoyant object over the bow and then walk aft along- 

 side it until he came to the taffrail, it would appear that neither log 

 could have possessed the slightest real value. Eventually when things 

 were really desperate a light was seen in the darkness ahead at ten 

 o'clock on October 11th, 1492, and the next morning they were off an 

 island which they named San Salvador, but which is now known as 

 Watling Island. 



Columbus and the West Indies. 



For some time Columbus cruised round the islands, still under the 

 impression that Japan was only a short distance ahead, and took 

 possession of Rum Cay, Cuba, Hispaniola and other islands. It was off 

 Hispaniola, which is now Hayti, that the Santa Maria was wrecked and 

 had to be abandoned, so that the Admiral determined to leave a shore 

 party and return to Spain for more supplies. A fort was built and forty- 

 four men were left. Returning in the Nina Columbus was very nearly 

 arrested by the Portuguese in the Azores but finally reached the Tagus 

 and was received with due ceremony. He reported to the Spanish 

 Court at Barcelona and was received with the greatest honours through- 

 out Spain. Immediately afterwards the Pope Alexander VI granted a 

 Bull which gave to Spain any land discovered West of a line drawn a 

 hundred leagues from the Azores and to Portugal any land east of that. 

 The full effects of this were seen in Magellan's famous voyage round 

 the world. 

 The Later Voyages of Columbus. 



He set out again in the autumn of 1493 with a very much larger 

 squadron and made his landfall at Dominica, reaching Hispaniola only 

 to find the fort burned and the colony dispersed. He had a lot of 

 trouble with his settlers who all expected to be rich without the least 



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