mediately considered as one marked out by destiny for great achievements. The voyage across the ocean, under his auspices, was no longer looked upon with mistrust or gloomy bodings; it was regarded, on the contrary, as conducting to certain distinction and unbounded riches. The honours heaped on the admiral by his grateful sovereigns, as well as the specimens of gold and rare productions which he had brought from the newlydiscovered countries, all operated as incentives to the bold and the ambitious, the covetous and the needy. After the court had resolved to furnish the previous expedition, the greatest difficulty had been experienced in equipping three small vessels. That task had been imposed on the port of Palos, a place of some importance in Andalusia; but although sought to be enforced by magisterial authority, yet so many difficulties arose from the disinclination of the people to embark in what they considered a desperate enterprise, that the requisition might perhaps have never been effectually complied with, had it not been for the personal influence of the Pinzons. Martin Alonzo Pinzon, the eldest of the family, was a person of some consideration in this maritime district. His reputation as an able navigator, no less than his affluent circumstances, procured him the regard and deference of his neighbours. He engaged heartily in the enterprise of Columbus, advanced money, provided the ships, and, what was of greater importance, embarked himself with his two brothers to share in all the toils and peril of the expedition. In an unlucky hour he swerved from the line of rectitude and forgot his duty to the admiral: the painful consciousness of having done what was unworthy of him, aggravated his bodily disease, and hastened his death. But the unhappy instability of conduct which contributed to embitter the last moments of this brave man's life, must not lead us to forget the habitual generosity of his character.
When Columbus prepared to embark on his second voyage, no difficulty was found in equipping the ex