120
LIFE
AND VOYAGES
to procure and fit out a third vessel.
OF
[BOOK
II.
The crews of all three
were to receive the ordinary wages of seamen employed in armed vessels, and to be paid four months in advance.
They were to
sail in such direction as Columbus, under the royal authority, should command, and were to obey him in all things, with merely one stipulation, that neither he nor they were to go to St. George la Mina, on the coast of Guinea, nor any other of the lately discovered possessions of Portugal.
A certificate of their good
conduct, signed by Columbus, was to be the discharge of their obligation to the crown.* Orders were likewise read, addressed to the public authorities, and the people of all ranks and conditions, in the maritime bor ders of Andalusia, commanding them to furnish supplies and assistance of all kinds, at reasonable prices, for the fitting out of the vessels; and penalties were denounced on such as should cause any impediment. articles furnished
No duties were to be exacted for any
to the vessels; and all criminal processes
against the person or property of any individual engaged in the expedition was to be suspended during his absence, and for two months after his return.† With these orders the authorities promised implicit compli ance ; but, when the nature of the intended expedition came to be known, astonishment and dismay fell upon the little commu nity.
The ships and crews demanded for such a desperate ser
vice were regarded in the light of sacrifices.
The owners of
vessels refused to furnish them; the boldest seamen shrank from such a wild and chimerical cruise into the wilderness of the ocean.
All kinds of frightful tales and fables were conjured up
concerning the unknown regions of the deep; and nothing can be * Navarrete, Colec. de Viages, torn. ii. doc. 6
†Idem, doc. 8, 9 .