Note 105-1 — JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

Las Casas, I. 282, adds to the foregoing under date of October 3: “He says here that it would not have been good sense to beat about and in that way to be delayed in search of them [i.e., the islands] since he had favorable weather and his chief intention was to go in search of the Indies by way of the west, and this was what he proposed to the King and Queen, and they had sent him for that purpose. Because he would not turn back to beat up and down to find the islands which the pilots believed to be there, particularly Martin Alonzo by the chart which, as was said, Cristóbal Colon had sent to his caravel for him to see, and it was their opinion that he ought to turn, they began to stir up a mutiny, and the disagreement would have gone farther if God had not stretched out his arm as he was wont, showing immediately new signs of their being near land since now neither soft words nor entreaties nor prudent reasoning of Cristóbal Colon availed to quiet them and to persuade them to persevere.” Ferdinand Columbus says simply, “For this reason the crew began to be mutinous, persevering in their complaints and plots,” p. 71. See page 108, note 1.