THE PREPARATIONS AT PALOS
The Palos that witnessed the fitting out of the ships of Columbus exists
no longer. The soul is gone from it; the trade that in those days made
it great and busy has floated away from it into other channels; and it
has dwindled and shrunk, until to-day it consists of nothing but a double
street of poor white houses, such almost as you may see in any sea-coast
village in Ireland. The slow salt tides of the Atlantic come flooding in
over the Manto bank, across the bar of Saltes, and, dividing at the
tongue of land that separates the two rivers, creep up the mud banks of
the Tinto and the Odiel until they lie deep beside the wharves of Huelva
and Palos; but although Huelva still has a trade the tides bring nothing
to Palos, and take nothing away with them again. From La Rabida now you
can no longer see, as Columbus saw, fleets of caravels lying-to and
standing off and on outside the bar waiting for the flood tide; only a
few poor boats fishing for tunny in the empty sunny waters, or the smoke
of a steamer standing on her course for the Guadalquiver or Cadiz.
But in those spring days of 1492 there was a great stir and bustle of
preparation in Palos. As soon as the legal documents had been signed
Columbus returned there and, taking up his quarters at La Rabida, set
about fitting out his expedition. The reason Palos was chosen was an
economical one. The port, for some misdemeanour, had lately been
condemned to provide two caravels for the service of the Crown for a
period of twelve months; and in the impoverished state of the royal
exchequer this free service came in very usefully in fitting out the
expedition of discovery. Columbus was quite satisfied, since he had such
good friends at Palos; and he immediately set about choosing the ships.
This, however, did not prove to be quite such a straightforward business
as might have been expected. The truth is that, whatever a few monks and
physicians may have thought of it, the proposed expedition terrified the
ordinary seafaring population of Palos. It was thought to be the wildest
and maddest scheme that any one had ever heard of. All that was known
about the Atlantic west of the Azores was that it was a sea of darkness,
inhabited by monsters and furrowed by enormous waves, and that it fell
down the slope of the world so steeply that no ship having once gone down
could ever climb up it again. And not only was there reluctance on the
part of mariners to engage themselves for the expedition, but also a
great shyness on the part of ship-owners to provide ships. This
reluctance proved so formidable an impediment that Columbus had to
communicate with the King and Queen; with the result that on the 23rd of
May the population was summoned to the church of Saint George, where the
Notary Public read aloud to them the letter from the sovereigns
commanding the port to furnish ships and men, and an additional order
summoning the town to obey it immediately. An inducement was provided in
the offer of a free pardon to all criminals and persons under sentence
who chose to enlist.
Still the thing hung fire; and on June 20 a new and peremptory order was
issued by the Crown authorising Columbus to impress the vessels and crew
if necessary. Time was slipping away; and in his difficulty Columbus
turned to Martin Alonso Pinzon, upon whose influence and power in the
town he could count. There were three brothers then in this
family--Martin Alonso, Vincenti Yanez, and Francisco Martin, all pilots
themselves and owners of ships. These three brothers saw some hope of
profit out of the enterprise, and they exerted themselves on
Christopher’s behalf so thoroughly that, not only did they afford him
help in the obtaining of ships, men, and supplies, but they all three
decided to go with him.
There was one more financial question to be settled--a question that
remains for us in considerable obscurity, but was in all probability
partly settled by the aid of these brothers. The total cost of the
expedition, consisting of three ships, wages of the crew, stores and
provisions, was 1,167,542 maravedis, about L950(in 1900). After all
these years of pleading at Court, all the disappointments and deferred
hopes and sacrifices made by Columbus, the smallness of this sum cannot
but strike us with amazement. Many a nobleman that Columbus must have
rubbed shoulders with in his years at Court could have furnished the
whole sum out of his pocket and never missed it; yet Columbus had to wait
years and years before he could get it from the Crown. Still more
amazing, this sum was not all provided by the Crown; 167,000 maravedis
were found by Columbus, and the Crown only contributed one million
maravedis. One can only assume that Columbus’s pertinacity in
petitioning the King and Queen to undertake the expedition, when he
could with comparative ease have got the money from some of his noble
acquaintance, was due to three things--his faith and belief in his Idea,
his personal ambition, and his personal greed. He believed in his Idea
so thoroughly that he knew he was going to find something across the
Atlantic. Continents and islands cannot for long remain in the
possession of private persons; they are the currency of crowns; and he
did not want to be left in the lurch if the land he hoped to discover
should be seized or captured by Spain or Portugal. The result of his
discoveries, he was convinced, was going to be far too large a thing to
be retained and controlled by any machinery less powerful than that of a
kingdom; therefore he was unwilling to accept either preliminary
assistance or subsequent rewards from any but the same powerful hand.
Admiralties, moreover, and Governor-Generalships and Viceroyships cannot
be conferred by counts and dukes, however powerful; the very title Don
could only be conferred by one power in Spain; and all the other titles
and dignities that Columbus craved with all his Genoese soul were to be
had from the hands of kings, and not from plutocrats. It was
characteristic of him all his life never to deal with subordinates, but
always to go direct to the head man; and when the whole purpose and
ambition of his life was to be put to the test it was only consistent in
him, since he could not be independent, to go forth under the protection
of the united Crown of Aragon and Castile. Where or how he raised his
share of the cost is not known; it is possible that his old friend the
Duke of Medina Celi came to his help, or that the Pinzon family, who
believed enough in the expedition to risk their lives in it, lent some of
the necessary money.
Ever since ships were in danger of going to sea short-handed methods of
recruiting and manning them have been very much the same; and there must
have been some hot work about the harbour of Palos in the summer of 1492.
The place was in a panic. It is highly probable that many of the
volunteers were a ruffianly riff-raff from the prisons, to whom personal
freedom meant nothing but a chance of plunder; and the recruiting office
in Palos must have seen many a picturesque scoundrel coming and taking
the oath and making his mark. The presence of these adventurers, many of
them entirely ignorant of the sea, would not be exactly an encouragement
to the ordinary seaman. It is here very likely that the influence of the
Pinzon family was usefully applied. I call it influence, since that is a
polite term which covers the application of force in varying degrees;
and it was an awkward thing for a Palos sailor to offend the Pinzons,
who owned and controlled so much of the shipping in the port. Little by
little the preparations went on. In the purchasing of provisions and
stores the Pinzons were most helpful to Columbus and, it is not
improbable, to themselves also. They also procured the ships;
altogether, in the whole history of the fitting out of expeditions,
I know nothing since the voyage of the Ark which was so well kept within
one family. Moreover it is interesting to notice, since we know the
names and places of residence of all the members of the expedition,
that the Pinzons, who personally commanded two of the caravels, had them
almost exclusively manned by sailors from Palos, while the Admiral’s ship
was manned by a miscellaneous crew from other places. To be sure they
gave the Admiral the biggest ship, but (in his own words) it proved “a
dull sailer and unfit for discovery”; while they commanded the two
caravels, small and open, but much faster and handier. Clearly these
Pinzons will take no harm from a little watching. They may be honest
souls enough, but their conduct is just a little suspicious, and we
cannot be too careful.
Three vessels were at last secured. The first, named the Santa Maria,
was the largest, and was chosen to be the flagship of Columbus. She was
of about one hundred tons burden, and would be about ninety feet in
length by twenty feet beam. She was decked over, and had a high poop
astern and a high forecastle in the bows. She had three masts, two of
them square-rigged, with a latine sail on the mizzen mast; and she
carried a crew of fifty-two persons. Where and how they all stowed
themselves away is a matter upon which we can only make wondering
guesses; for this ship was about the size of an ordinary small coasting
schooner, such as is worked about the coasts of these islands with a crew
of six or eight men. The next largest ship was the Pinta, which was
commanded by Martin Alonso Pinzon, who took his brother Francisco with
him as sailing-master. The Pinta was of fifty tons burden, decked only
at the bow and stern, and the fastest of the three ships; she also had
three masts. The third ship was a caravel of forty tons and called the
Nina; she belonged to Juan Nino of Palos. She was commanded by Vincenti
Pinzon, and had a complement of eighteen men. Among the crew of the
flagship, whose names and places of residence are to be found in the
Appendix, were an Englishman and an Irishman. The Englishman is entered
as Tallarte de Lajes (Ingles), who has been ingeniously identified with a
possible Allard or AEthelwald of Winchelsea, there having been several
generations of Allards who were sailors of Winchelsea in the fifteenth
century. Sir Clements Markham thinks that this Allard may have been
trading to Coruna and have married and settled down at Lajes. There is
also Guillermo Ires, an Irishman from Galway.
Allard and William, shuffling into the recruiting office in Palos,
doubtless think that this is a strange place for them to meet, and rather
a wild business that they are embarked upon, among all these bloody
Spaniards. Some how I feel more confidence in Allard than in William,
knowing, as I do so well, this William of Galway, whether on his native
heath or in the strange and distant parts of the world to which his
sanguine temperament leads him. Alas, William, you are but the first of
a mighty stream that will leave the Old Country for the New World; the
world destined to be good for the fortunes of many from the Old Country,
but for the Old Country itself not good. Little does he know, drunken
William, willing to be on hand where there is adventure brewing, and to
be after going with the boys and getting his health on the salt water,
what a path of hope for those who go, and of heaviness for those who stay
behind, he is opening up . . . . Farewell, William; I hope you were
not one of those whom they let out of gaol.
June slid into July, and still the preparations were not complete. Down
on the mud banks of the Tinto, where at low water the vessels were left
high and dry, and where the caulking and refitting were in hand, there
was trouble with the workmen. Gomaz Rascon and Christoval Quintero, the
owners of the Pinta, who had resented her being pressed into the service,
were at the bottom of a good deal of it. Things could not be found; gear
mysteriously gave way after it had been set up; the caulking was found to
have been carelessly and imperfectly done; and when the caulkers were
commanded to do it over again they decamped. Even the few volunteers,
the picked hands upon whom Columbus was relying, gave trouble. In those
days of waiting there was too much opportunity for talk in the shore-side
wine-shops; some of the volunteers repented and tried to cry off their
bargains; others were dissuaded by their relatives, and deserted and hid
themselves. No mild measures were of any use; a reign of terror had to
be established; and nothing short of the influence of the Pinzons was
severe enough to hold the company together. To these vigorous measures,
however, all opposition gradually yielded. By the end of July the
provisions and stores were on board, the whole complement of eighty-seven
persons collected and enlisted, and only the finishing touches left for
Columbus. It is a sign of the distrust and fear evinced with regard to
this expedition, that no priest accompanied it--something of a sorrow to
pious Christopher, who would have liked his chaplain. There were two
surgeons, or barbers, and a physician; there were an overseer, a
secretary, a master-at-arms; there was an interpreter to speak to the
natives of the new lands in Hebrew, Greek, German, Chaldean or Arabic;
and there was an assayer and silversmith to test the quality of the
precious metals that they were sure to find. Up at La Rabida, with the
busy and affectionate assistance of the old Prior, Columbus made his
final preparations. Ferdinand was to stay at Cordova with Beatriz, and
to go to school there; while Diego was already embarked upon his life’s
voyage, having been appointed a page to the Queen’s son, Prince Juan, and
handed over to the care of some of the Court ladies. The course to be
sailed was talked over and over again; the bearings and notes of the
pilot at Porto Santo consulted and discussed; and a chart was made by
Columbus himself, and copied with his own hands for use on the three
ships.
On the 2nd of August everything was ready; the ships moored out in the
stream, the last stragglers of the crew on board, the last sack of flour
and barrel of beef stowed away. Columbus confessed himself to the Prior
of La Rabida--a solemn moment for him in the little chapel up on the
pine-clad hill. His last evening ashore would certainly be spent at the
monastery, and his last counsels taken with Perez and Doctor Hernandez.
We can hardly realise the feelings of Christopher on the eve of his
departure from the land where all his roots were, to a land of mere faith
and conjecture. Even today, when the ocean is furrowed by crowded
highways, and the earth is girdled with speaking wires, and distances are
so divided and reduced that the traveller need never be very long out of
touch with his home, few people can set out on a long voyage without some
emotional disturbance, however slight it may be; and to Columbus on this
night the little town upon which he looked down from the monastery, which
had been the scene of so many delays and difficulties and vexations, must
have seemed suddenly dear and familiar to him as he realised that after
to-morrow its busy and well-known scenes might be for ever a thing of the
past to him. Behind him, living or dead, lay all he humanly loved and
cared for; before him lay a voyage full of certain difficulties and
dangers; dangers from the ships, dangers from the crews, dangers from
the weather, dangers from the unknown path itself; and beyond them, a
twinkling star on the horizon of his hopes, lay the land of his belief.
That he meant to arrive there and to get back again was beyond all doubt
his firm intention; and in the simple grandeur of that determination the
weaknesses of character that were grouped about it seem unimportant. In
this starlit hour among the pine woods his life came to its meridian;
everything that was him was at its best and greatest there. Beneath him,
on the talking tide of the river, lay the ships and equipment that
represented years of steady effort and persistence; before him lay the
pathless ocean which he meant to cross by the inner light of his faith.
What he had suffered, he had suffered by himself; what he had won, he had
won by himself; what he was to finish, he would finish by himself.
But the time for meditations grows short. Lights are moving about in the
town beneath; there is an unwonted midnight stir and bustle; the whole
population is up and about, running hither and thither with lamps and
torches through the starlit night. The tide is flowing; it will be high
water before dawn; and with the first of the ebb the little fleet is to
set sail. The stream of hurrying sailors and townspeople sets towards
the church of Saint George, where mass is to be said and the Sacrament
administered to the voyagers. The calls and shouts die away; the bell
stops ringing; and the low muttering voice of the priest is heard
beginning the Office. The light of the candles shines upon the gaudy
roof, and over the altar upon the wooden image of Saint George
vanquishing the dragon, upon which the eyes of Christopher rested during
some part of the service, and where to-day your eyes may rest also if you
make that pilgrimage. The moment approaches; the bread and the wine are
consecrated; there is a shuffling of knees and feet; and then a pause.
The clear notes of the bell ring out upon the warm dusky silence--once,
twice, thrice; the living God and the cold presence of dawn enter the
church together. Every head is bowed; and for once at least every heart
of that company beats in unison with the rest. And then the Office goes
on, and the dark-skinned congregation streams up to the sanctuary and
receives the Communion, while the blue light of dawn increases and the
candles pale before the coming day. And then out again to the boats with
shoutings and farewells, for the tide has now turned; hoisting of sails
and tripping of anchors and breaking out of gorgeous ensigns; and the
ships are moving! The Maria leads, with the sign of the Redemption
painted on her mainsail and the standard of Castile flying at her mizzen;
and there is cheering from ships and from shore, and a faint sound of
bells from the town of Huelva.
Thus, the sea being--calm, and a fresh breeze blowing off the land, did
Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos at sunrise on Friday the 3rd of
August 1492.