The admiral forwarded the equipment of this expedition with all possible care, and set sail from the bay of San Lucar de Barameda on the thirtieth of May 1498, having six ships loaded with provisions and other necessaries for the relief of the colonists in Hispaniola, and for the farther settlement and peopling of that island.  On the seventh of June he arrived at the island of Puerto Santo, where he heard mass, and took in wood and water and other necessaries, yet he sailed that same night for Madeira, where he arrived on Sunday the ninth of June, and was courteously received and entertained at Funchal by the governor of the island.  He remained in this place until Saturday the fifteenth of June, providing all manner of refreshments, and arrived at Gomera on Wednesday the nineteenth of the same month.  At this place there was a French ship which, had captured three Spanish vessels; on seeing the admirals squadron, the Frenchman stood out to sea with two of his prizes:  and the admiral supposing them to be three merchant vessels which mistook his squadron for French, took no care to pursue till too late, and when informed of what they were, he sent three of his ships in pursuit but they got clear off.  They might have carried away the third prize likewise, if they had not abandoned her in the consternation they were in on first noticing our fleet; so that there being only four Frenchmen on board and six Spaniards belonging to her original crew, the Spaniards on seeing assistance at hand, clapt the Frenchmen under the hatches and returned into port, where the vessel was restored to her former master.  The admiral would have executed these French prisoners as pirates, but that Don Alvaro de Lugo the governor interceded for them, that they might be given in exchange for six of the inhabitants who had been carried away.

The admiral sailed from Gomera for Ferro on Thursday the twenty-first of June, whence he resolved to send three of his ships direct to Hispaniola, and going with the rest to the islands of Cabo Verde to sail directly over from thence to discover the continent.  He therefore appointed a captain to each of the ships which he sent to Hispaniola.  One of those was Pedro de Arana, cousin to that Arana who died in Hispaniola, the second was Alonzo Sanchez de Caravajal, and the third his own kinsman John Anthony Columbus.  To these captains he gave particular instructions for the conduct of their voyage, directing that each of them should have the command a week in his turn.  Having dispatched these three ships for Hispaniola, he set out with the other three for the Cape Verde islands; but the climate he was then entering upon being unhealthy at that season, he had a terrible fit of the gout in one leg, and four days afterwards he fell into a violent fever; but, notwithstanding this sickness he was still himself, and diligently observed the course made by the ship, the alterations of the weather, and all other circumstances as in his first voyage.