goes in the said armada." The town of Palos was ordered to provide two
vessels.[11]

[Footnote 11: The requisition to the municipality of Palos runs thus:
"In consequence of the offence which we received at your hands, you were
condemned by our council to render us the service of two caravels,
armed, at your own expense, for the space of twelve months, whenever and
wherever it should be our pleasure to demand the same:" (30th April,
1492.) A proclamation of immunity from civil and criminal process to
persons taking service in the expedition was issued at the same time.
The ship of Columbus was, therefore, a refuge for criminals and runaway
debtors, a cave of Adullam for the discontented and the desperate. To
have to deal with such a community was not of the least of Columbus's
difficulties.]


ORDER TO PRESS MEN.

But there was still a weighty difficulty to be surmounted. It was no easy
matter to obtain crews for such an expedition. The sovereigns issued an
order authorizing Columbus to press men into the service, but still the
numbers were incomplete, for the mariners of Palos held aloof, unwilling
to risk their lives in what seemed to them the crazy project of a
monomaniac. But Juan Perez was active in persuading men to embark. The
Pinzons, rich men and skilful mariners of Palos, joined in the undertaking
personally, and aided it with their money, and, by these united exertions,
three vessels were manned with ninety mariners, and provisioned for a
year.