Casting about for a navigator eminently qualified as pilot and cosmographer to pursue the exploration indicated by Cabral, along the coast of the country he had so strangely revealed, King Emanuel of Portugal made up his mind that Amerigo Vespucci was the man he wanted. Just when he came to this decision, and when Vespucci shifted his allegiance from Spain to Portugal, is not exactly known, but it was probably late in the year 1500, after his return, of course, from the voyage with Ojeda and La Cosa. The particulars of this transaction we will let him relate in the following letter contained in this chapter. He does not quite satisfactorily explain how he came to break with King Ferdinand, especially as both the sovereign and Fonseca had received him with marked attention, the latter having presented him at court, where he was consulted as to new expeditions, and "his accounts of what he had already seen listened to with the greatest interest." The affair is all the more inexplicable from the fact that during the interval between his return from the second voyage and his going to Portugal he was married to a charming lady of Seville. This lady, Dona Maria Cerezo, was his betrothed during the time he was engaged with the house of Berardi, but the mania for exploring having seized him, their marriage was not consummated until after the two voyages had been made. She went with him to the court, sharing there the honors heaped upon him by the king; but after this little is heard of her, though it is known that she survived him several years, and on account of his distinguished services to Spain received a liberal pension from the government. Leaving his newly wedded wife in Seville, Vespucci went to Portugal, "where he was received with open arms by King Emanuel, and commenced with ardor the preparation of the fleet." Respecting his sudden departure from Spain, his Italian eulogist, Canovai, has this to say: "It does not appear that King Ferdinand considered himself wronged by the sudden flight and, to say the least, apparent discourtesy of Amerigo in leaving the kingdom and the king, his patron, without salutation or leave-taking. It was probably looked upon as a trait of his reserved character, or an evidence of his aversion to idle and slanderous rumors, which he was unwilling to take the pains to contradict. Rumors and whisperings soon die away when they have nothing to feed upon, and when Vespucci returned, as though from a journey, the slight was forgotten, and he was treated with greater honor than before." To what cause King Emanuel owed this acquisition of King Ferdinand's skilled navigator does not appear; but he was not to retain him very long. He made, however, two voyages under the flag of Portugal, the first of which is outlined in this letter to his friend, the Gonfaloniere of Florence, Piero Soderini: