ily--Martin Alonso, Vincenti Yanez, and Francisco Martin, all pilots
themselves and owners of ships. These three brothers saw some hope of
profit out of the enterprise, and they exerted themselves on
Christopher's behalf so thoroughly that, not only did they afford him
help in the obtaining of ships, men, and supplies, but they all three
decided to go with him.

There was one more financial question to be settled--a question that
remains for us in considerable obscurity, but was in all probability
partly settled by the aid of these brothers. The total cost of the
expedition, consisting of three ships, wages of the crew, stores and
provisions, was 1,167,542 maravedis, about L950(in 1900). After all
these years of pleading at Court, all the disappointments and deferred
hopes and sacrifices made by Columbus, the smallness of this sum cannot
but strike us with amazement. Many a nobleman that Columbus must have
rubbed shoulders with in his years at Court could have furnished the
whole sum out of his pocket and never missed it; yet Columbus had to wait
years and years before he could get it from the Crown. Still more
amazing, this sum was not all provided by the Crown; 167,000 maravedis
were found by Columbus, and the Crown only contributed one million
maravedis. One can only assume that Columbus's pertinacity in
petitioning the King and Queen to undertake the expedition, when he
could with comparative ease have got the money from some of his noble
acquaintance, was due to three things--his faith and belief in his Idea,
his personal ambition, and his personal greed. He believed in his Idea
so thoroughly that he knew he was going to find something across the
Atlantic. Continents and islands cannot for long remain in the
possession of private persons; they are the currency of crowns; and he
did not want to be left in the lurch if the land he hoped to discover
should be seized or captured by Spain or Portugal. The result of his
discoveries, he was convinced, was going to be far too large a thing to
be retained and controlled by any machinery less powerful than that of a
kingdom; therefore he was unwilling to accept either preliminary
assistance or subsequent rewards from any but the same powerful hand.
Admiralties, moreover, and Governor-Generalships and Viceroyships cannot
be conferred by counts and dukes, however powerful; the very title Don
could only be conferred by one power in Spain; and all the other titles
and d