It was decreed by a royal order of November 23, 1492, that the authorities were to confiscate for the State Treasury all property which had belonged to the Jews, including that which Christians had taken from them or had appropriated unlawfully or by violence. This gave Ferdinand sufficient means to provide for the second voyage of Columbus (March 23, 1493). The King and the Queen signed a large number of injunctions to royal officers in Soria, Zamora, Burgos and many other cities, directing them to secure immediate possession of all the precious metals, gold and silver utensils, jewels, gems and other objects of value that had been taken from the Jews who were expelled from Spain or had migrated to Portugal, and everything that these Jews had entrusted for safe keeping to Marrano, relatives or friends, and all Jewish possession which Christians had found or had unlawfully appropriated. The royal officers were later ordered to convert this property into ready money and to give the proceeds to the treasurer, Francisco Pinelo, in Seville, to meet the expenditure of Columbus’ second expedition. One of the specific instances of these confiscations which deserves to be mentioned, is the order to Bernardino de Lerma to transfer to Pinelo all the gold, silver and various other things which Rabbi Ephraim (who is sometimes referred to in contemporary documents as Rabi Frayn, also as Rubifrayn, and who was perhaps the father of the great Rabbi Joseph Caro, author of the Shulhan Aruk, etc.), the richest Jew in Burgos, had before emigrating left with Isabel Osoria, the wife of Louis Nunez Coronel of Zamora. Not merely the clothing, ornaments and valuables which had been taken from the Jews were converted into money, but also the debts which they had been unable to recover were declared by order of the Crown to be forfeited to the state treasury, and stringent measures were adopted to collect them. A moderate estimate places the sum thus obtained at six million maravedis, to which ought to be added the two millions contributed by the Inquisition of Seville as a part of the enormous sums which it wrested from Jews and Moors. According to another order, issued in the above-named date, it was from this Jewish money that Columbus was paid the ten thousand maravedis which the Spanish monarchs had promised as a reward to him who should first sight land.[3] In the days of suffering and disgrace which came to Columbus after his discoveries, Santangel and Sanchez remained faithful to him and often interceded in his behalf with Ferdinand and Isabella. They both died in 1505, about one year before the great discoverer whose success they made possible. Their immediate descendants occupied high positions in the royal service. * * * * *