.)

[241-4] Ferdinand Columbus has preserved in his life of his father the
exact words of the Journal for the last two pages of the entry for
February 14. The extract is given here to illustrate the character of the
work of the epitomizer who prepared the text of the Journal as it has
come down to us. "I should have borne this fortune with less distress if
my life alone had been in peril, since I am aware that I am in debt to
the Most High Creator for my life and because at other times I have found
myself so near to death that almost nothing remained but to suffer it.
But what caused me boundless grief and trouble was the reflection that,
now that Our Lord had been pleased to enlighten me with the faith and
with the certainty of this undertaking in which he had already given me
the victory, that just now, when our gainsayers were to be convinced and
your Highnesses were to receive from me glory and enlargement of your
high estate, the Divine Majesty should will to block it with my death.
This last would have been more endurable if it did not involve that of
the people I brought with me with the promise of a very prosperous issue.
They seeing themselves in such a plight not only cursed their coming but
even the fear or the restraint which after my persuasions prevented them
from turning back from the way as many times they were resolved to do.
And above all this my grief was redoubled at the vision before my eyes
and at the recollection of two little sons that I had left at their
studies in Cordova without succor in a strange land and without my having
rendered (or at least without its being made manifest) the service for
which one might trust that your Highnesses would remember them.

"And although on the one hand I was comforted by the faith that I had
that Our Lord would never suffer a work which would highly exalt his
Church, which at length after so much opposition and such labors I had
brought to the last stage, to remain unaccomplished and that I should be
broken; on the other hand, I thought that, either on account of my
demerits or to prevent my enjoying so much glory in this world, it was
his pleasure to take it away from me, and so while thus in perplexity I
bethought myself of the venture of your Highnesses who even if I should
die and the ship be lost, might find means of not losing a victory
already achieved and that it might be possible in some way for the news
of the success of my voyage to come to your e