On that May day when Christoval Colon,[1] the hare-brained foreigner whom the King and Queen had made an Admiral, read the royal orders in the Church of San Jorge in Palos, there was amazement, wrath and horror in that small seaport.  Queen Ysabel had indeed been so rash as to pledge her jewels to meet the cost of this expedition; but the royal treasurers, looking over their accounts, noted that Palos owed a fine to the Crown which had never been paid.  Very good; let Palos contribute the use and maintenance of two ships for two months, and let the magistrates of the Andalusian ports hunt up shipmasters and crews and supplies.  The officers of the government came with Colon to enforce this order.

In vain did the Pinzon brothers, who had really been convinced by the arguments of Colon, use all their influence to secure him a proper equipment.  Even after they had themselves enlisted as captains, with their own ship the Nina, they could not get men enough to go on so doubtful a venture.  The royal officers finally took to the reckless course of pardoning all prisoners guilty of any crime short of murder or treason, on condition of their shipping for the voyage.  At least half the sailors of the three ships were pressed men.

The Santa Maria, largest of the three caravels, was ninety feet long and twenty broad.  She was a decked ship; the others had only the tiny cabin and forecastle.  A caravel was never intended for long voyages into unknown seas.  Her builders designed her for coasting trade, not for a quick voyage independent of wind and tide; but on the other hand she was cheaper to build and to sail than a Genoese galley.  The Admiral believed that in the end the smallness of the ships would be no disadvantage.  Among the estuaries, bays and groups of islands which he expected to find, they could go anywhere.  Including shipmasters, pilots and crews the fleet carried eighty-seven men and three ship-boys, besides the personal servants of the Admiral, a physician, a surgeon, an interpreter and a few adventurers.  The interpreter was a converted Jew who could speak not only several European languages but Arabic and Chaldean.

“A retinue of servants indeed!” observed Fonseca, the bishop, when the door had closed upon the Admiral of the Indies.  “Since all enlisted in the expedition are at his service, why does he demand lackeys?”

But the head of the Genoese navigator had not been turned by his honors.  No man cared less for display than he did, personally.  He knew very well, however, that unless he maintained his own dignity the rabble under his command might be emboldened to cut his throat, seize the ships and become pirates.  The men whom he could trust were altogether too few to control those he could not, if it came to an open fight,—­but it must not be allowed to come to that.  It was not agreeable to squabble with Fonseca about the number of servants he was allowed to have, but he must have personal attendants who were not discharged convicts.