We are very certain, as the fact has shown, that wheat and grapes will grow very well in this country. We must however, wait for the fruit.... There are also sugar-canes, of which the small quantity that we have planted has succeeded very well. Since the land is so fertile, it is desirable to sow as much as possible: and Don Juan de Fonseca has been desired to send over immediately everything requisite for that purpose.... (pp. 77, 78). LETTER ABOUT THE THIRD VOYAGE This enterprise to the Indies [i.e., the original discovery] ... those who heard of it looked upon it as impossible, for they fixed all their hopes on the favours of fortune, and pinned their faith solely upon chance. I gave to the subject six or seven years of great anxiety, explaining ... how great service might be done to Our Lord, by this undertaking, in promulgating his Sacred Name and most holy faith among so many nations.... It was also requisite to refer to the temporal prosperity which was foretold in the writings of so many trustworthy and wise historians, who related that great riches were to be found in these parts.... (p. 104). In this your Highnesses exhibited the noble spirit which has always been manifested by you on every subject; for all others who had thought of the matter or heard it spoken of, unanimously treated it with contempt, with the exception of two friars [a Franciscan and a Dominican, afterwards Archbishop of Seville] who always remained constant in their belief of its practicability. LETTER RELATING TO FOURTH VOYAGE ... I pushed on for Terra Firma, in spite of the wind and a fearful contrary current, against which I contended for sixty days, and during that time made only seventy leagues (p. 171) ... other tempests have been experienced but never of so long a duration or so fearful as this: many whom we looked upon as brave men, on several occasions showed considerable trepidation, but the distress of my son who was with me grieved me to the soul and the more when I considered his tender age for he was but thirteen years old, and he enduring so much toil for so long a time. The Lord however gave him strength even to enable him to encourage the rest, and he worked as if he had been eighty years at sea, and all this was a consolation to me. I myself had fallen sick and was many times at the point of death, but from a little cabin that I had caused to be constructed on deck I directed our course. My brother was in the ship that was in the worst condition and the most exposed to danger; and my grief on this account was the greater that I brought him with me against his will (p. 172).