In
trying to escape the long calms which had beset Bartolome Dias in the
Gulf of Guinea, Pedro Cabral, commander of the fleet, struck out quite
far from the Morocco coast and got into the Equatorial Current. The
existence of this powerful westward current had never been suspected by
either Spanish or Portuguese mariners. Wind and current combining,
Cabral and his captains found themselves, in about a month's time, on
the coast of Brazil near the present Rio de Janeiro. Thus a current
never before known carried them to land never before known. And thus for
the second time, if the shipwrecked pilot told the truth, America was
discovered by accident.
All this had given Europe some idea of the vastness of the world to the
west. If Columbus was to bring his own discoveries to a glorious finish,
it was high time that, instead of quibbling over maintaining a contract,
he should have given up the empty honors that were to have been his, and
have asked only for permission to hurry back and discover more land.
Ferdinand, who now saw that the islands would need not one but a dozen
governors if ever they were to be colonized and developed, would not
hear of reinstating Columbus as governor. The most the monarchs would
give him in the way of satisfaction was that Bobadilla should be removed
and another man, who had had nothing to do thus far with the quarrels of
the New World, should be appointed for two years.
Pages:
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177