"And we grant you such power and authority, that you, as our viceroy and governor, and your lieutenants, commanders, and officers, by you created, may exercise the civil and criminal jurisdiction, the supreme and mean authority, and the absolute and mixed command. And in those places you may remove, turn out, and put in others in their places, as often as you please, and may find convenient. And they shall have power to hear, judge, and determine, all suits or causes, civil and criminal, that shall occur or arise in said islands and continent, and they shall have and receive the fees and salaries usually annexed and pertaining to those employments in our kingdoms of Castile and Leon. And you our said viceroy and governor, may hear and determine all the said causes or any of them, whensoever you please, upon the first motion, or by way of appeal or complaint, and may examine, determine, and decide them as our viceroy and governor: and you and your children may do all that is reasonable in such cases, and in all other things pertaining to the office of viceroy and governor; and you and your lieutenants and officers, may take such cognizance and use such methods as you shall think proper for our service and the due execution of justice. All which you and they may do, and perform lawfully and effectually, as they might and ought to do, had the said officers been appointed by us. And our will and pleasure is, that all such letters-patent as you shall grant, be drawn and granted in our names with these words, Ferdinand and Isabella, by the grace of GOD, king and queen of Castile and Leon, &c. and shall be sealed with our seal, which we shall cause to be given you for the said islands and continent. And we command all the people and inhabitants, and other persons in the said islands and continent, to obey you as our viceroy and governor of the same, and all those who sail on the said seas, to obey you as our admiral of the said ocean; and that all of them shall execute your letters and orders, and shall take part with you and your officers for the due execution of our justice, and shall give and cause to be given you all the aid and assistance you shall require and stand in need of, upon such penalties as you shall impose upon them, which by these presents we do impose upon them, and declare to be imposed; and we grant you authority to execute the same, upon their persons and goods."

"And it also is our will, that if you shall find it for our service, and the due execution of justice to cause any person who shall be in the said islands and continent to depart therefrom, and not to stay or return thereto, and that they shall come and appear before us; you may, in our name command and make them depart accordingly, all whom we by these presents command, that they presently perform, execute, and put in practice all that has been enjoined, without looking farther or asking advice in the same, not expecting any other letter or command from us, and notwithstanding any appeal or petition which they may make or present to us against your said order. For all which things, and any other due or belonging to the said offices of our admiral, viceroy, and governor, we give you sufficient authority in all incidents, dependencies, and emergencies, that may occur. Concerning all which, if you shall so desire, we command our chancellor, notaries, and others, our officers belonging to our seals, that they give, pass, dispatch, and seal for you, our letters of privilege, in as strong, firm, and effective manner as you may require of them and stand in need of, and that none of them do any thing to the contrary, upon pain of our displeasure, and of thirty ducats to be paid to our treasury by every one who may be guilty to the contrary hereof."

"And besides, we command him that shall shew them30 this our letter to summon them to appear before us in our court wheresoever we may happen to be, within fifteen days, under the same penalty. Under which we also command any public notary, who may be called for such purpose, that he give to him who shall produce these letters to him a certificate, signed under his hand, that we may know how our commands are obeyed31.

"Given in our city of Barcelona, this 28th of May, in the year of our Lord 1493." "I the King.I the Queen. "

"By their majesties order, Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, secretary to the king and queen." "Peter Gutierres, Chancellor: Without fees for seal or entry." "Delivered by Roderick Doctor." "Entered, Alonzo Perez."

Orders having been issued to make all necessary preparations for the establishment of a permanent colony in the new discovery, the admiral went from Barcelona to Seville in June 1493, and so diligently solicited the fitting out of the fleet which their Catholic majesties had directed to be provided, that in a short time seventeen vessels of various sizes were got ready, well stored with provisions and with all things deemed necessary for the intended colonization. Handicrafts of all sorts, with peasants or farmers to till the ground, and a variety of labourers, were engaged to accompany the expedition. The fame of the gold and other rarities which the newly discovered region produced, had induced so many gentlemen and other persons of respectability to offer themselves, that it became necessary to limit the numbers who could be permitted to embark, and not to allow all who were eager to transport themselves to the new world to go there, until time should make it appear how matters might succeed, and the colony might be somewhat settled. Yet so eager were the adventurers to engage in the scheme of this new colony, that 1500 persons of all sorts went upon the expedition; of whom some carried out horses, asses, and other kinds of cattle, which were afterwards of most important benefit to the colony.

All things being prepared, the admiral weighed anchor from the road of Cadiz, where the fleet had been prepared, upon Wednesday the 25th of September 1493, an hour before sun-rising, and stood to the southwards for the Canary islands, designing to procure some necessary refreshments there32. On the 28th of September, being then 100 leagues from Spain, great numbers of land birds, among which were turtle-doves, and many small birds, came aboard the admirals ship, which were supposed to come from the Azores, and to be on their passage to Africa to pass the winter. Holding on their course, the fleet came to anchor at Gran Canaria on Wednesday the 2d of October, and sailed again at midnight for Gomera, where it arrived on the 5th of October. The admiral issued orders for every thing of which the fleet might stand in need to be provided with all possible dispatch.

On Monday the 7th of October, the admiral continued his voyage for the West Indies, having first delivered sealed orders to every ship in the fleet, with strict injunctions that they were not to be opened unless separated from him by stress of weather. In these he gave directions for the course which they were to steer for attaining the town of the Nativity in Hispaniola, and he did not wish that course should be known by any one without urgent necessity. Having sailed on with a fair wind until Thursday the 24th of October, when they were by estimation 400 leagues west from Gomera, all were astonished at not finding any of the weeds which had been met with on the former voyage when only 250 leagues advanced into the Atlantic. On that day and the next a swallow was seen flying about the fleet. On the night of Saturday the 26th, the body of St Elmo, with seven lighted candles, was seen on the round top, which was followed by prodigious torrents of rain and frightful thunder and lightning. I mean those lights were seen which the seamen affirm to be the body of St Elmo, to whom they sing litanies and prayers upon these occasions, and they firmly believe that there can be no danger from those storms in which that phenomenon occurs. According to Pliny, when such lights appeared to the Roman sailors they were said to be Castor and Pollux, of which Seneca likewise makes mention in the beginning of his Book of Nature.33