Note 59 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

F. Fourth Voyage (May 9, 1502, to Nov. 7, 1504).—While at Jamaica Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella a wild, despondent letter,[211] suggestive of alienation of mind. It brings the story of the voyage down only to July 7, 1503, leaving four months unrecorded. Pinelo says it was printed in the Spanish, as he wrote it; but no such print is known.[212] Navarrete found in the King’s private library, at Madrid, a manuscript transcript of it, written, apparently, about the middle of the sixteenth century; and this he printed in his Coleccion.[213] It was translated into Italian by Costanzo Bayuera, of Brescia, and published at Venice, in 1505, as Copia de la lettera per Colombo mandata.[214] Cavaliere Morelli, the librarian of St. Mark’s, reprinted it, with comments, at Bassano, in 1810, as Lettera rarissima di Cristoforo Colombo.[215] Navarrete prints two other accounts of this voyage,—one by Diego Porras;[216] the other by Diego Mendez, given in his last will, preserved in the Archives of the Duke of Veraguas.[217]