About the end of the year 1484 the admiral stole away privately from Lisbon with his son James, as he was afraid of being detained by the king of Portugal.  For, being sensible of the misconduct of the people whom he had sent in the caravel already mentioned, the king was desirous to restore the admiral to favour, and to renew the conferences respecting the proposed discovery.  But as he did not use as much diligence in executing this new resolution as the admiral did in withdrawing himself, he lost the opportunity, and the admiral got into Castile, where better fortune awaited him.  Leaving therefore his son James in the monastery of La Rabida at Palos, he went to the court of their Catholic majesties at Cordova.  Being of affable manners and pleasant conversation, he soon acquired the intimacy of such persons as he found best inclined to favour his views, and fittest to persuade the king to embrace his proposed undertaking.  Among these was Lewis de Santangel an Arragonese gentleman, who was clerk of the allowances in the royal household, a man of great prudence and reputation.  But, as a matter of such importance required to be learnedly investigated, and not merely by empty words and the favourable reports of courtiers, their majesties referred it to the consideration of the prior of Prado, afterwards archbishop of Granada; ordering him to take the assistance of some cosmographers, and after a full investigation of the whole affair, to make a report of their opinion on its practicability.  There were few cosmographers then in Spain, and those who were convened on this occasion were far from skilful:  And besides, warned by the trick which had been attempted in Portugal, the admiral did not explain himself so fully as he might, lest he should lose his reward.  On these accounts, the report which they gave to their Catholic majesties was as various as their several judgments and opinions, and by no means favourable to the projected enterprize.

Some alleged, that since so many skilful sailors, during the many thousand years which had elapsed from the creation of the world, had not acquired any knowledge whatever of these countries, it was not at all probable that he should know more of the matter than all who had gone before or who now existed.  Others, pretending to ground their opinion upon cosmographical arguments, said that the world was of such prodigious size that they questioned if it were possible to sail in three years to the eastern extremity of India, whither he proposed to go; and they endeavoured to confirm this opinion by the authority of Seneca, who says in one of his works, “That many wise men disagreed about whether the ocean were of infinite extent, and doubted whether it were navigable, and whether habitable lands existed on its other side; and, even if so, whether it were possible to go to these.”  They added, that only a small proportion of this terraqueous globe, which had remained in our hemisphere above the