The Ninth, That He Went With Twelve Ships On His Second Voyage, While He Actually Had Seventeen.

The tenth, that he arrived at Hispaniola in twenty days, which is too short a time to reach the nearest islands; and he certainly did not perform the second voyage in two months, and besides went to other islands much farther distant before going to Hispaniola.

The eleventh, that he immediately afterwards went from Hispaniola with two ships, whereas he certainly went to Cuba with three vessels. The twelfth falsehood is, that Hispaniola is four hours (difference in longitude) distant from Spain; while the admiral reckoned it to be five. The thirteenth, to add one to the dozen, is that the western point of Cuba is six hours distant from Hispaniola; making a farther distance of longitude from Hispaniola to Cuba, than from Spain to Hispaniola.

By the foregoing examples of negligence, in inquiring into the truth of those particulars which are plain and easy to have been learnt, we may divine what inquiry he made into those which are obscure and in which he contradicts himself, as already proved. But, laying aside this fruitless controversy, I shall only add that, in consideration of the many falsehoods in the Chronicle and Psalter of Justiniani, the senate of Genoa have imposed a penalty upon any person within their jurisdiction who shall read or keep those books, and have ordered that they shall be carefully sought after and destroyed.

To conclude this disquisition, I assert that the admiral, so far from being a person occupied with the vile employments of mechanics or handicraft trades, was a man of learning and experience, and entirely occupied in such studies and exercises as fitted him for and became the glory and renown of his most wonderful discoveries; and I shall close this chapter with an extract from a letter which he wrote to the nurse of Prince John of Castile. "I am not the first admiral of my family, let them give me what name they please. After all, that most prudent king David was first a shepherd, and was afterwards chosen king of Jerusalem; and I am a servant to the same Lord who raised him to so great dignity."

In his person the admiral was above the middle stature and well shaped, having rather a long visage, with somewhat full cheeks, yet neither fat nor lean. His complexion was very fair with delicately red cheeks, having fair hair in his youth, which became entirely grey at thirty years of age. He had a hawk nose, with fair eyes. In his eating and drinking, and in his dress, he was always temperate and modest. In his demeanour he was affable to strangers and kind and condescending to his domestics and dependents, yet with a becoming modesty and dignified gravity of manner, tempered with easy politeness. His regard for religion was so strict and sincere, even in keeping the prescribed fasts and reciting all the offices of the church, that he might have been supposed professed in one of the religious orders; and so great was his abhorrence to profane swearing that I never heard him use any other oath than by St Ferdinand; and even in the greatest passion, his only imprecation was "God take you." When about to write, his usual way of trying his pen was in these words, Jesu cum Maria sit nobis in via; and in so fair a character as might have sufficed to gain his bread by writing.

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