a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, written in
1501. In this letter, as first given in the biography by his son,
Columbus says that he was of "very tender age" when he began to sail the
seas, an occupation which he has kept up until the present moment; and
in the next sentence but one he adds that "now for forty years I have
been in this business and have gone to every place where there is any
navigation up to the present time."[411] The expression "very tender
age" agrees with Ferdinand's statement that his father was fourteen
years old when he first took to the sea.[412] Since 1446 + 14-40 = 1500,
it is argued that Columbus was probably born about 1446; some sticklers
for extreme precision say 1447. But now there were eight years spent by
Columbus in Spain, from 1484 to 1492, without any voyages at all; they
were years, as he forcibly says, "dragged out in disputations."[413] Did
he mean to include those eight years in his forty spent upon the sea?
Navarrete thinks he did not. When he wrote under excitement, as in this
letter, his language was apt to be loose, and it is fair to construe it
according to the general probabilities of the case. This addition of
eight years brings his statement substantially into harmony with that of
Bernaldez, which it really will not do to set aside lightly. Moreover,
in the original text of the letter, since published by Navarrete,
Columbus appears to say, "now for _more than_ forty years," so that the
agreement with Bernaldez becomes practically complete.[414] The good
curate spoke from direct personal acquaintance, and his phrases
"seventy years" and "a good old age" are borne out by the royal decree
of February 23, 1505, permitting Columbus to ride on a mule, instead of
a horse, by reason of his old age (_ancianidad_) and infirmities.[415]
Such a phrase applies much better to a man of sixty-nine than to a man
of fifty-nine. On the whole, I think that Washington Irving showed good
sense in accepting the statement of the curate of Los Palacios as
decisive, dating as it does the birth of Columbus at 1436, "a little
more or less."

[Footnote 408: Harrisse, _op. cit._ tom. i. p. 196.]

[Footnote 409: "In _senectute bona_, de edad de setenta anos
poco mas o menos." Bernaldez, _Reyes Catolicos_, tom. i. p.
334.]

[Footnote 410: M. d'Avezac (_Canevas chronologique_, etc.)
objects to this date that we have positive documentary evidence