The prior and his coadjutors were all influenced by a Spanish proverb, which, though contradictory to reason and common sense, says _Dubitat Augustinus_, or it is contradicted by St Augustine; who, in the 9th chapter of the 21st book of his city of God, denies the possibility of the _Antipodes_, or that any person should be able to go from one hemisphere into the other. They farther urged against the admiral the commonly received opinions concerning the five zones, by which the torrid zone is declared utterly uninhabitable, and many other arguments equally absurd and ridiculous. Upon the whole, they concluded to give judgment against the enterprize as vain and impracticable, and that it did not become the state and dignity of such great princes to act upon such weak information as they conceived to have been communicated. Therefore, after much time spent in the business, the admiral received for answer that their Catholic majesties were then occupied in many other wars, and particularly in the conquest of Granada then going on, and could not therefore conveniently attend to this new undertaking; but that on some future opportunity of greater leisure and convenience, they would have more time to examine into his proposal. To conclude, their majesties refused to listen to the great proposals which the admiral made to them. While these matters were in agitation, their Catholic majesties had not been always resident in one place, owing to the war of Granada in which they were then engaged, by which a long time was lost before they had formed a final resolution and given their answer. The admiral went therefore to Seville, where he still found their majesties as unresolved as before. He then gave an account of his projected expedition to the duke of Medina Sidonia; but, after many conferences finding no likelihood of success, he resolved to make application to the king of France, to whom he had already written on the subject; and, if he should not succeed there, he proposed to have gone next into England to seek his brother, from whom he had not hitherto received any intelligence. In this resolution, he went to the monastery of Rabida, whence he proposed to have sent his son James to Cordova, and to have then proceeded on his journey into France. But Providence having decreed otherwise, occasioned the cementation of so great friendship between the admiral and John Perez, the father guardian of that monastery, who was so thoroughly assured of the excellence and practicability of the project, that he was deeply concerned at the resolution my father had adopted, and for the loss which Spain would sustain by his departure. Perez earnestly entreated the admiral to postpone his intended departure; saying, that as he was confessor to the queen, he was resolved to make an essay to persuade her to compliance, and hoped that she would give credit to his representations.