APPENDIX.
347
very year prior to the discovery : " fue el dicho su padre â Roma aquel dicho aHo antes que fuese a descubrir."
Arias Perez always mentions the
manuscript as having been imparted to Columbus, after he had come to Palos with an intention of proceeding on the discovery. Certain witnesses who were examined on behalf of the crown, and to whom specific interrogatories were put, asserted, as has already been mentioned in a note to this work, that had it not been for Martin Alonzo Pinzon and his brothers, Columbus would have turned back for Spain, after having run seven or eight hundred leagues ; being disheartened at not finding land, and dismayed by the mutiny and menaces of his crew. This is stated by two or three as from personal knowledge, and by others from hearsay. ber.
It is said especially to have occurred on the 6th of Octo
O n this day, according to the journal of Columbus, he had some
conversation with Martin Alonzo, who was anxious that they should stand more to the southwest.
T h e admiral refused to do so, and it is very
probable that some angry words may have passed between them.
Various
disputes appear to have taken place between Columbus and his colleagues respecting their route, previous to the discovery of land ; in one or two instances he acceded to their wishes, and altered his course, but in general he was inflexible in standing to the west.
T h e Pinzons also, in all proba
bility, exerted their influence in quelling the murmurs of their townsmen and encouraging them to proceed, when ready to rebel against Columbus. These circumstances may have become mixed up in the vague recollec tions of the seamen who gave the foregoing extravagant testimony, and who were evidently disposed to exalt the merits of the Pinzons at the ex pense of Columbus.
They were in some measure prompted also in their
replies by the written interrogatories put by order of the fiscal, which spe cified the conversations said to have passed between Columbus and the Pinzons, and notwithstanding these guides they differed widely in their statements, and ran into many absurdities.
In a manuscript record in pos
session of the Pinzon family, I have even read the assertion of an old sea man, that Columbus, in his eagerness to compel the Pinzons to turn back to Spain, fired upon their ships, but, they continuing on, he was obliged to follow, and within two days afterwards discovered the island of Hispa niola. It is evident the old sailor, if he really spoke conscientiously, mingled in his cloudy remembrance the disputes in the early part of the voyage, about altering their course to the southwest, and the desertion of Martin Alonzo, subsequent to the discovery of the Lucayos and Cuba, when,