Note 108-1 — JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

The trouble with the captains and the sailors is told in greatest detail by Oviedo, Historia de las Indias, lib. II., cap. V. He is the source of the story that the captains finally declared they would go on three days longer and not another hour. Oviedo does not say that Columbus acquiesced in this arrangement. Modern critics have been disposed to reject Oviedo’s account, but strictly interpreted, it is not inconsistent with our other sources. Columbus recalls in his Journal, February 14, 1493, the terror of the situation which was evidently more serious than the entry of October 10 would imply. Peter Martyr too says that the sailors plotted to throw Columbus overboard and adds: “After the thirtieth day roused by madness they declared they were going back,” but that Columbus pacified them. De Rebus Oceanicis, Dec. lib. I., fol. 2, ed. of 1574. Oviedo says that he derived information from Vicente Yañez Pinzon, “since with him I had a friendship up to the year 1514 when he died.” Historia de las Indias, II., cap. XIII.