Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/643

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acquisitions. Arrangements were at once made to fit out a fleet on an extensive scale, and the royal injunctions, though highly arbitrary, were now obeyed with the utmost alacrity. A fleet of seventeen vessels, large and small, were soon ready. The best pilots were chosen for the service, while skilled husbandmen, miners, and other mechanics, were engaged for the colonies it was intended to found. Horses for military purposes and for stocking the country, together with cattle and domestic animals of various kinds, were likewise provided, as well as seeds of almost every description, and plants, including vines and sugar canes; nor was there wanting an abundant supply of trinkets, beads, hawks'-bells, looking-glasses, and other showy trifles, to induce traffic among the natives. The most exaggerated accounts spread of the fabulous wealth of the territories, and adventurers of every kind, from the highest to the very lowest, were equally eager to join in the expedition. Some were doubtless inflamed with the mere hope and lust of wealth, while others less selfish in their motives pictured to themselves a wide field for the display of their military genius and skill, in what did not seem impossible to them, the actual conquest of the grand Khan and the capture of the fabled land of Cathay.

The number of persons permitted to embark in the expedition had been originally limited to one thousand, but the applications from volunteers were so numerous that fifteen hundred persons were eventually enrolled; and early on the morning of the 25th of September, 1493, they sailed from the bay of Cadiz in three large vessels and fourteen caravels. No accounts of the size of any of these vessels have been transmitted