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"VERY DEAR SON, Diego Mendez left here Monday, the 3rd of this month. After his departure I talked with Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer of this letter, who is going yonder, where he is called in regard to matters of navigation. He was always desirous of pleasing me. He is a very honourable man. Fortune has been adverse to him as it has been to many others.
All this time Giuseppe Ripa was in prison, condemned to die, but not executed; because after his trial and sentence, a letter had been received by the chief person in authority, warning him against shedding the blood of the innocent. 'Señor Mendez is mistaken, the letter said: 'he did not see the assassin, who attacked him from behind, and Giuseppe Ripa is not guilty.
This arrangement being made, Mendez dispatched a message to apprise the Admiral, and then proceeded upon his journey, during which he visited three different caciques, who all agreed to his proposals. Having now sent back his companions, Mendez made his way to the eastern end of the island, where he found a powerful cacique, named Ameyro.
Bartholomew Columbus immediately put himself at the head of a large and well-armed party for this purpose, and Bartolomeo Fieschi, the Genoese captain of one of the lost caravels, volunteered to accompany Mendez in a second canoe.
Right now, thanks to this Miss La Rue, I've got a hunch that we're goin' to make the discovery, and put Bill Lacy and ol' Mendez out of business. But there's no sense of our gassin' here. We got a right smart bit o' ridin' to do afore daylight."
"I trust," said he, "that the truth and diligence of Diego Mendez will be of as much avail as the lies of Porras." Nothing can surpass the affecting earnestness and simplicity of the general declaration of loyalty, contained in one of his letters.
Father Mendez seemed deeply interested in it, and took every opportunity of watching its progress, and examining it to ascertain that it was a thoroughly well-made healthy child. At length the father gave notice that he was going to Lerwick: he went, and some of the household declared that they breathed far more freely than they had done for a very long time.
Had the brave Diego Mendez gone to the bottom? He must have perished, thought the Admiral, for surely if he had reached San Domingo alive even the harsh Comendador Ovando could not have refused to send aid to stranded countrymen on a savage island! But why not, good Admiral?
He detained his companion-in-arms with courteous and brotherly requests that he would remain till the evening repast, at which some relatives of the Mendez family joined the party, and in their presence Fadrique declared the brave Heimbert of Waldhausen to be Dona Clara's fiance, sealing the betrothal with the most solemn words, so that it might remain indissoluble, whatever might afterward occur which should seem inimical to their union.
A Portuguese envoy, Fernam de Andrada, reached Canton in 1517 in the first European ship to enter Chinese waters and Pekin three years later. Another adventurer named Mendez Pinto spent years in China and in 1548 established a factory near Yokohama, Japan.
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