The life and voyages of Christopher Colombus. Volume 3, partie 2

Page 79

324

APPENDIX.

These two were uncle and nephew : the latter being termed by historians Colombo the younger, (by the Spanish historians Colombo el mozo.)

T h e y were in the Genoese service, but are mentioned, occasion足

ally, in old chronicles as French commanders, because Genoa, during a great part of

their time, was under the protection, or rather the

sovereignty of France, and her ships and captains, being engaged in the expeditions of that power, were identified with the French marine. Mention is made of the elder Colombo in Zurita's Annals of Arragon, ( L . xix. p. 261,) in the war between Spain and Portugal, on the subject of the claim of the Princess Juana to the crown of Castile.

In 1476, the

king of Portugal determined to go to the Mediterranean coast of France, to incite his ally, Louis X I , to prosecute the war in the province of Guipuzcoa. T h e king left Toro, says Zurita, on the 13th June, and went by the river to the city of Porto, in order to await the armada of the king of France, the captain of which was Colon, (Colombo,) who was to navigate by the straits of Gibraltar to pass to Marseilles. After some delays Colombo arrived in the latter part of July with the French armada at Bermeo, on the coast of Biscay, where he encountered a violent storm, lost his principal ship, and ran to the coast of Galicia, with an intention of attacking Ribaldo, and lost a great many of his men. Thence he went to Lisbon to receive the king of Portugal, who embarked in the fleet in August, with a number of his noblemen, and took two thou足 sand two hundred foot soldiers, and four hundred and seventy horse, to strengthen the Portuguese garrisons along the Barbary coast. were in the squadron twelve ships and five caravels.

There

After touching at

Ceuta the fleet proceeded to Colibre, where the king disembarked in the middle of September, the weather not permitting them to proceed to Mar足 seilles.

(Zurita, L . xix. Ch. 5 1 . )

This Colombo is evidently the naval commander of whom the follow足 ing mention is made by Jaques George de Chaufepie, in his supplement to Bayle, (vol. 2 , p. 126 of letter C . ) " I do not know what dependence," says Chaufepie, " is to be placed on a fact reported in the Ducatiana,

(Part 1, p. 143,) that Columbus was in

1474 captain of several ships for Louis X I , and that, as the Spaniards had made at that time an irruption into Roussillon he thought that, for reprisal, and without contravening the peace between the two crowns, he could run down Spanish vessels.

H e attacked, therefore, and took two galleys

of that nation, freighted on the account of various individuals.

O n com-


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