The admiral remained at Valparaiso all the Sunday and Monday till after mass, when he took leave of the king, who expressed great kindness and made him great proffers; and ordered Don Martin de Noronha to accompany him. Many other gentlemen went along with him to do him honour, and from curiosity to hear an account of the voyage. While on his way to Lisbon, the admiral had to pass a monastery where the queen then resided, who earnestly entreated him not to pass without seeing her. She received him with all the favour and honour which is due to the greatest lord. That night a gentleman brought a message from the king to inform the admiral that if he chose to go by land into Spain, he had orders to attend him, and to provide lodgings and every thing he might want by the way, as far as the frontiers of Portugal. But the admiral chose to return by sea.
On Wednesday the thirteenth of March, two hours after day-break, the admiral sailed from Lisbon, and on the following Friday, the fifteenth of March 1493, he arrived at Saltes about noon, and came to an anchor in the port of Palos, whence he had set out on the preceding third of August 1492, having been absent seven months and twelve days upon his expedition. He was there received by all the people in solemn procession, giving thanks to God for his prosperous voyage and glorious discovery, which it was hoped would greatly redound to the propagation of Christianity, and the extension of their Catholic majesties dominions. All the inhabitants considered it as a great honour to their city that the admiral had sailed from thence, and that most of his men belonged to the place, although many of them, through the instigations of Pinzon, had been mutinous and disobedient.
It so happened that about the same time that the admiral arrived at Palos, Pinzon had arrived with the Pinta in Galicia, and designed to have gone by himself to Barcelona to carry the news of the expedition to their Catholic majesties. But he received orders not to come to court, unless along with the admiral with whom he had been sent upon the discovery; at which he was so mortified and disappointed that he returned indisposed to his native country, where he died shortly after of grief. But before Pinzon got to Palos the admiral had set out for Seville, designing to go from thence to Barcelona where their majesties then resided, and he was forced to make several short stops by the way, to gratify the importunate curiosity and admiration of the people, who flocked from all the towns in the neighbourhood wherever he went, to see him and the Indians and the other things he had brought with him. Thus holding on his way, the admiral reached Barcelona about the middle of April, having before sent to their highnesses on account of the happy success of his voyage. This was very pleasing to them, and they ordered him to be received in the most distinguished manner, as a person who had done them such signal service. All the court and city went out to meet and welcome him, and to escort him in honourable triumph to the royal presence. Their Catholic majesties sat in public with great state on rich chairs under a canopy of cloth of gold to receive him; and when he advanced to kiss their hands, they stood up as if to receive a great lord, even making a difficulty in giving him their hands to kiss, and then caused him to sit down in their presence. Having given a brief account of his voyage, they gave him leave to retire to his apartment, whither he was attended by the whole court; and so great was the favour and honour shewn him, that when the king rode about Barcelona, the admiral rode on one side of him and the Infante Fortuna on the other; whereas before no one rode along-side of the king except the Infante, who was his near kinsman.
Orders were issued from Barcelona to prepare with all care and expedition for the return of the admiral to Hispaniola, as well to relieve those Christians who had been left there as to enlarge the colony and subdue the island, with the rest that were and should be discovered. To strengthen and confirm their title to the newly discovered regions, their Catholic majesties by the advice of the admiral, procured the approbation and consent of the pope for the conquest of the Indies, which was readily granted by Alexander VI, who then governed the church; and the bull to this effect was not only for what was already discovered, but for all that might be discovered westwards, until they should come to the East, where any Christian prince was then actually in possession, and forbidding all persons whomsoever to intrude within these bounds. And this concession and exclusive right was again confirmed in the year following in the most ample terms. Sensible that all this favourable grant from the pope was due to the admiral, by whose discovery they had become entitled to the possession of all these parts, their majesties were pleased, on the twenty-eighth of May, at Barcelona, to ratify, renew, confirm, and explain the privileges and prerogatives which they had granted him before, by granting them of new, so as explicitly to define how far the bounds of his admiralty and viceroyalty extended, being over all which had been granted to them by his holiness, of which grant the tenor follows:
Original Grant to Columbus in 1492, before the Discovery.
"FERDINAND and ISABELLA, by the grace of God, King and Queen of Castile, Leon, Arragon, Sicily, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca, Minorca, Seville, Sardinia, Jaen, Algarve, Algezira, Gibraltar, and the Canary islands, Lord and Lady of Biscay and Molina, Duke and Duchess of Athens and Neopatria, Count and Countess of Boussillon and Cerdagne, Marquis and Marchioness of Oristan and Gociano, &c."
"Forasmuch as you CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS are going by our command, and with some of our ships and men to discover and subdue certain islands and continents in the ocean, and it is hoped by Gods assistance that some of those islands and continents will be discovered by your means and conduct, it is therefore just and reasonable, since you expose yourself to such dangers in our service, that you be suitably rewarded. And willing to honour and favour you for the reasons aforesaid, our will is that you Christopher Columbus, after discovering and conquering the said islands and continent, in the said ocean, or any of them, shall be our admiral of all such islands and continent as you shall so discover and conquer, and that you be our admiral, viceroy, and governor in them: that for the future you may call and style yourself Don Christopher Columbus; and that your sons and successors in the said employment may call themselves dons, admirals, viceroys, and governors, in the same: That you may exercise the charge of admiral, viceroy, and governor of the said islands and continent which you or your lieutenants shall conquer, and shall freely decide all causes, civil and criminal, appertaining to the said employments of admiral, viceroy, and governor, as you think fit according to justice, and as the admirals of our kingdom are in use to do: That you shall have power to punish all offenders: That you and your lieutenants may exercise the employments of admiral, viceroy, and governor, in all things belonging to the said offices, or any of them, and that you shall enjoy the perquisites and salaries belonging to the said employments and to each of them, in the same manner that the high admiral of our kingdom does at present."