under pretence of carrying supplies to the Cape Verd islands, with private
instructions to sail in the direction in which my father had proposed to
go upon his intended discovery. But the people who were sent upon this
expedition did not possess sufficient knowledge or spirit; and, after
wandering many days in the Atlantic, they returned to the Cape Verd
islands, laughing at the undertaking as ridiculous and impracticable, and
declaring that there could not possibly be any land in that direction or
in those seas. When this scandalous underhand dealing came to my fathers
ears, he took a great aversion to Lisbon and the Portuguese nation; and,
his wife being dead, he resolved to repair into Castile, with his son Don
James Columbus, then a little boy, who has since inherited his fathers
estate. But, lest the sovereign of Castile might not consent to his
proposal, and he might be under the necessity of applying to some other
prince, by which much time might be lost, he dispatched his brother
Bartholomew Columbus from Lisbon to make similar proposals to the king of
England. Bartholomew, though no Latin scholar, was skilful and experienced
in sea affairs, and had been instructed by the admiral in the construction
of sea charts, globes, and other nautical instruments. While on his way to
England, Bartholomew Columbus had the misfortune to be taken by pirates,
who stript him and all the rest of the ships company of every thing they
had of value. On this account he arrived in England in such great poverty,
and that aggravated by sickness, that he was unable to deliver his message
until he had recruited his finances by the sale of sea charts of his own
construction, by which a long time was lost He then began to make
proposals to Henry VII. who then reigned in England, to whom he presented
a map of the world, on which the following verses and inscription were
written:


Terrarum quicunque cupis feliciter oras