Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [66]
Columbus’s first thoughts were of King João, but there was no satisfaction in proving the disdainful Portuguese monarch wrong. Instead, the Admiral invoked Ferdinand and Isabella, explaining that they had “ordered him not to avoid entering the harbors of His Highness to ask for what was necessary, in return for pay.” When the weather cleared, he would be eager to sail to Lisbon “because some ruffians, thinking he carried much gold, were planning to commit some rascality.” It would require all his tact and diplomacy to persuade the Portuguese that he had not been raiding their protected interests on the Guinea coast—which Spain had promised to avoid—but was actually returning from the Indies. Either explanation would incite the wrath of King João.
All the more surprising, then, was the appearance of the “master of the great ship of the King of Portugal,” riding at anchor nearby: Bartolomeu Dias. When last seen by Columbus in 1488, this courageous navigator was making his triumphal return to Lisbon after the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. At the time, he enjoyed the great favor of the king who had refused to back Columbus’s scheme to find a water route to the Indies. But four and a half years had wrought changes. No longer a captain, Dias was now second-in-command, or master, of a modest vessel in the service of the king. And Columbus, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, had successfully completed his visionary if misunderstood mission, an accomplishment that further jeopardized his relationship with this deeply suspicious king.
Dias impudently drew alongside Niña “and told the Admiral to enter the gig to come and give an account to the king’s factors and the captain.”
No, Columbus replied, he would do no such thing, “unless by compulsion of being unable to resist armed force.” Dias proposed a compromise: Columbus could elect to send his second-in-command, but stubborn Genoese that he was, he insisted he would only go if forced, and “that it was the custom of the Admirals of the sovereigns of Castile to die before they yielded themselves or their people.”
Faced with this bravado, Dias relented slightly, requesting to see the letters of authorization from Ferdinand and Isabella, which Columbus had initially offered to show. This he did, and having examined them, Dias returned in the gig to his ship to explain the situation to his own captain, who, “with a great noise of drums, trumpets, and pipes, came aboard the caravel [Niña], spoke with the Admiral, and offered to do all he commanded.”
By the next day, March 6, Columbus’s exploits were the talk of Lisbon, and people regarded his triumph with awe. Of course, both they and the Admiral of the Ocean Sea were misinformed and confused about what he had accomplished. He had not reached Asia, as he would have everyone believe. Yet his actual deeds were even more impressive, and, it would later emerge, more traumatic and transformative, than his fanciful claims. Instead of establishing a new trade route, he had discovered a new world.
Nevertheless, he clinched his argument that he had journeyed to China by displaying the Indian passengers he had brought with him, persuading both himself and his public of the veracity of his claims. He reported, “So many people came from the city of Lisbon today to see him and the Indians, that it was astonishing, and they were all full of wonder, giving thanks to Our Lord.”
At long last a letter came from King João II, inviting Columbus to a royal audience at a monastery. The beleaguered discoverer preferred to remain with his ship for the sake of form and for personal security, but he had no choice but to comply with the request, “to disarm suspicion.” As an inducement, “The King gave orders to his factors that everything the Admiral and his people and the caravel [Niña] stood in need of he would supply without pay.”
Columbus