Wednesday, 26 December 1492
All this was the will of God: the ship’s running aground so easily that it could not be felt, with neither wind nor wave; the cowardice of the ship’s master and some of the crew (who were mostly from his part of Spain), who refused my order to cast the stern anchor to draw the ship off and save it; the discovery of this country.
Without God’s intervention this country would not have been known as it has come to be known during our time here, and as it will be known by the people I intend to leave here. I had been sailing all the time with the intention of making discoveries and not remaining anywhere longer than a day unless there was no wind because the Santa Marria was very cumbersome and not suited to the work of discovery. The reason I took that ship in the first place was due to the people of Palos, who did not fulfill to me what they had promised the King and Queen. I should have been given ships suitable for this journey, and the people of Palos did not do that. Of the Santa Maria’s contents, not a leather strap was lost, nor a board, nor a nail, because the ship remained as sound as when she started except that we chopped and split her some in order to remove the large casks and all the cargo. All these things have been placed on land and are well secured.
I hope to God that when I come back here from Castile, which I intend on doing, that I will find a barrel of gold, for which these people I am leaving will have traded, and that they will have found the gold mine, and the spices, and in such quantities, that within three years the Sovereigns will prepare for and undertake the conquest of the Holy Land. I have already petitioned Your Highnesses to see that all the profits of this, my enterprise, should be spent on the conquest of Jerusalem, and Your Highnesses smiled and said that the idea pleased them, and that even without this expedition they had the inclination to do it.
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