Note 496 — Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

Footnote 496: The entry, as given by Las Casas, is "Pro authore, seu pictore, ║ Gennua cui patria est, nomen cui Bartolomeus ║ Columbus de terra rubea, opus edidit istud ║ Londonije: anno domini millesimo quatercentessimo octiesque uno ║ Atque insuper anno octavo: decimaque die mensis Februarii. ║ Laudes Christo cantentur abunde." Historia, tom. i. p. 225. Now since Bartholomew Columbus was a fairly educated man, writing this note in England on a map made for the eyes of the king of England, I suppose he used the old English style which made the year begin at the vernal equinox instead of Christmas, so that his February, 1488, means the next month but one after December, 1488, i. e. what in our new style becomes February, 1489. Bartholomew returned to Lisbon from Africa in the last week of December, 1487, and it is not likely that his plans could have been matured and himself settled down in London in less than seven weeks. The logical relation of the events, too, shows plainly that Christopher's visit to Lisbon was for the purpose of consulting his brother and getting first-hand information about the greatest voyage the world had ever seen. In the early weeks of 1488 Christopher sends his request for a safe-conduct, gets it March 20, waits till his child is born, August 15, and then presently goes. Bartholomew may have sailed by the first of October for England, where (according to this reading of his date) we actually find him four months later. What happened to him in this interval? Here we come to the story of the pirates. M. Harrisse, who never loses an opportunity for throwing discredit upon the Vita dell' Ammiraglio, has failed to make the correction of date which I have here suggested. He puts Bartholomew in London in February, 1488, and is thus unable to assign any reason for Christopher's visit to Lisbon. He also finds that in the forty-six days between Christmas, 1487, and February, 10, 1488, there is hardly room enough for any delay due to so grave a cause as capture by pirates. (Christophe Colomb, vol. ii. p. 192.) He therefore concludes that the statement in the Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xi., is unworthy of credit, and it is upon an accumulation of small difficulties like this that he bases his opinion that Ferdinand Columbus cannot have written that book. But Las Casas also gives the story of the pirates, and adds the information that they were "Easterlings," though he cannot say of what nation, i. e. whether Dutch, German, or perhaps Danes. He says that Bartholomew was stripped of his money and fell sick, and after his recovery was obliged to earn money by map-making before he could get to England. (Historia, tom. i. p. 225.) Could all this have happened within the four months which I have allowed between October, 1488, and February, 1489? Voyages before the invention of steamboats were of very uncertain duration. John Adams in 1784 was fifty-four days in getting from London to Amsterdam (see my Critical Period of American History, p. 156). But with favourable weather a Portuguese caravel in 1488 ought to have run from Lisbon to Bristol in fourteen days or less, so that in four months there would be time enough for quite a chapter of accidents. Las Casas, however, says it was a long time before Bartholomew was able to reach England:—"Esto fué causa que enfermase y viniese á mucha pobreza, y estuviese mucho tempo sin poder llegar á Inglaterra, hasta tanto que quiso Dies sanarle; y reformado algo, por su industria y trabajos de sus manos, haciendo cartas de marear, llegó á Inglaterra, y, pasados un dia y otros, hobo de alcanzar que le oyese Enrique VII." It is impossible, I think, to read this passage without feeling that at least a year must have been consumed; and I do not think we are entitled to disregard the words of Las Casas in such a matter. But how shall we get the time?