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Updated: May 20, 2025
The journal kept by Columbus on this voyage has been lost, and no copy of it remains. Columbus settled at Cadiz during the time in which he was engaged upon the fitting out of the expedition. It was no light matter to superintend the appointment of the crews and passengers, every one of whom was probably interviewed by Columbus himself, and at the same time to keep level with Archdeacon Fonseca.
Columbus had to supervise everything himself; and no wonder that by the end of May, when he was ready to sail, his patience and temper were exhausted and his much-tried endurance broke down under the petty gnatlike irritations of Fonseca and his myrmidons.
No cause for the breach and reconciliation being known, some attributed it to caprice, others to the wily design of the astute Calderon for the humiliation of Uzeda, who seemed only to have been admitted to one smile from the rising sun in order more signally to be reconsigned to the shade. Meanwhile, Fonseca prospered almost beyond his hopes.
It was given out that I was the nephew of the rich old physician Fonseca, whom he was training to take his place; and this, together with my own appearance and manners, ensured me a welcome in the best houses of Seville. Here I took that share of our business which my master could not take, for now he never mixed among the fashion of the city.
It was thus that first I became acquainted with Senor Andres de Fonseca, my benefactor, the strangest man whom I have ever known.
By this time Fonseca was coasting along the shore, but the south-easterly winds preventing him from making Monterey, he entered the Bay of St. Francisco. There Fonseca had landed with about two hundred rascals of his own stamp; and his first act of aggression had been to plunder and destroy the little city.
He announced to Columbus, rather coolly, that he could probably redress the grievances which these men had. He undoubtedly knew that he had the protection of Fonseca at home. Fortunately for Columbus, Roldan did not mean to give up his place as "leader of the opposition;" and it may be said that the difficulty between the two was a certain advantage to Columbus in maintaining his authority.
Had I known two days ago what I know to-day, by now this villain had been safe in prison. But perhaps it is not yet too late. I am ill, but I will rise and see to it. Leave it to me, nephew. Go, nurse yourself, and leave it to me; if anything may be done I can do it. Stay, bid a messenger be ready. This evening I shall know whatever there is to be known. That night Fonseca sent for me again.
That evening, at the Palace of Belem, some two miles down the Tagus from the Necessidades Palace, Marshal Hermes da Fonseca, President-elect of Brazil, was entertaining King Manuel at a State dinner. There was an electrical sense of disquiet in the air.
This treaty grants to the United States in perpetuity the exclusive right to construct a canal by way of the San Juan River and Lake Nicaragua, and leases to the United States for ninety-nine years a naval base on the Gulf of Fonseca, and also the Great Corn and Little Corn islands as coaling stations.
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