of happy success. They, seeing themselves in so great jeopardy, did not
only curse their setting out upon the expedition, but the fear and awe
which I had impressed upon them, to dissuade them from returning when
outward bound, as they had several times resolved upon. Above all, my
sorrow was redoubled by the remembrance of two sons whom I had left at
school in Cordova, destitute of friends and in a strange country, before I
had done, or at least before it could be known that I had performed any
service which might incline your majesties to remember and protect them."

"Though I comforted myself with the hope that God would not allow a matter
which tended so much to the exaltation of his church to be left imperfect,
when I had through so much opposition and trouble brought it almost to
perfection; yet I considered that it might be his will that I should not
be permitted to obtain such honour in this world, because of my demerits.
In this perplexity, I remembered your highnesses good fortune; which,
though I were dead and the ship lost, might yet find some means that a
conquest so nearly achieved should not be lost, and that possibly the
success of my voyage might come to your knowledge by some means or other.
With this view, as briefly as the time would permit, I wrote upon
parchment that I had discovered the lands which I had promised; likewise
how many days were employed on the voyage, the direction in which I had
sailed, the goodness of the country, the nature of the inhabitants, and
how some of your highnesses subjects were left in possession of my
discoveries. Which writing I folded and sealed up and superscribed to your
highnesses, promising a reward of 1000 ducats to whoever might deliver it
sealed into your hands; that, in case it might be found by a foreigner,
the promised reward might induce him not to communicate the intelligence.
I then caused a great cask to be brought to me, and having wrapped the
writing in oiled cloth, which I surrounded with a cake of wax, I placed
the whole in the cask: I then carefully closed up the bung-hole and threw