to
follow him at their own cost, without receiving the royal pay. Rather
than overcrowd his ships and to spare his supplies, he refused to take
any of the latter. Care was taken that no foreigner should mingle with
the Spaniards, without the King's permission, and for this reason I am
extremely astonished that a certain Venetian, Aloisio Cadamosto, who
has written a history of the Portuguese, should write when mentioning
the actions of the Spaniards, "We have done; we have seen; we have
been"; when, as a matter of fact, he has neither done nor seen any
more than any other Venetian. Cadamosto borrowed and plagiarised
whatever he wrote, from the first three books of my first three
Decades, that is to say, those which I addressed to the Cardinals
Ascanio and Arcimboldo, who were living at the time when the events
I described were happening. He evidently thought that my works would
never be given to the public, and it may be that he came across
them in the possession of some Venetian ambassador; for the most
illustrious Senate of that Republic sent eminent men to the Court of
the Catholic Kings, to some of whom I willingly showed my writings. I
readily consented that copies should be taken. Be that as it may, this
excellent Aloisio Cadamosto has sought to claim for himself what was
the work of another. He has related the great deeds of the Portuguese,
but whether he witnessed them, as he pretends, or has merely profited
by the labour of another, I am unable to state. _Vivat et ipse marte
suo_.

Nobody, who had not been enrolled by the royal agents, as a soldier,
in the King's pay was allowed to go on board the vessels of Pedro
Arias. In addition to these regulars there were some others, including
one Francisco Cotta, a compatriot of mine, and thanks to a royal
order I obtained for him, he was allowed to go to the New World as
a volunteer with Pedro Arias. But for this he would not have been
permitted to depart. Now let the Venetian, Cadamosto, go on and write
that he has seen everything, while I, who for twenty-six years have
lived, not without credit, at the Court of the Catholic King, have
only been able by the greatest efforts to obtain authorisation for
one foreigner to sail. Some Genoese, but very few, and that at
the instance of the Admiral, son of the first discoverer of those
countries, succeeded in obtaining a like authorisation; but to no one
else was permission granted.

Pedro Arias sailed from Seville on the