Here again Prescott falls into error in attempting to follow a manuscript copy of Juan Diaz, without due heed to the standard chroniclers. Mr Prescott writes, Mex., i. 224, ‘The fleet left the port of St Jago de Cuba, May 1, 1518,’ and refers to the Itinerario of Juan Diaz in proof of his statement. But Juan Diaz makes no such statement. ‘Sabbato il primo giorno del mese de Marzo,’ he says, Itinerario, in Icazbalceta, Col. Doc., i. 281, ‘de questo sopradito anno parti il dicto capitaneo de larmata de lisola Fernandina.’ Saturday, the 1st day of May, the armada left the island of Fernandina, or Cuba. The writer does not intimate that they left the port of Santiago on that day, which, as a matter of fact, they did not, but the extreme western point of the island, Cape San Antonio. This Prescott might further have learned from Herrera, dec. ii. lib. iii. cap. i., ‘Despachado pues Iuan de Grijalua de todo punto, salio del puerto de Sãtiago de Cuba, a ocho de Abril deste año de 1518;’ from Bernal Diaz, Hist. Verdad., 6, who states that all met and attended mass at Matanzas, the 5th of April, just prior to sailing; ‘Y despues de auer oîdo Missa con gran deuocion, en cinco dias del mes de Abril de mil y quinientos y diez y ocho años dimos vela;’ from Solis, *Conq.
Mex., 25, ‘tardaron finalmente en hacerse á la mar hasta los ocho de Abril;’ from Robertson, Hist. Am., i. 241, ‘He sailed from St Jago de Cuba on the 8th of April,’ etc. Ternaux-Compans perpetrates two gross blunders in the first four lines of his translation of this Itinerario of Juan Diaz. First he writes March for May, ‘equivocando,’ as Icazbalceta says, ‘la palabra mazo del original con marzo*.’ and, secondly, he brings the fleet to Cozumel Island on the 4th, when his author writes the 3d, which is enough, without the palpable absurdity of making Monday the 4th day of a month wherein the previous Saturday was the 1st. Oviedo states, i. 503, that ‘salieron del puerto de la cibdad de Sanctiago á los veynte é çinco dias del mes de enero;’ that they were at Matanzas the 12th of February, at Habana the 7th of April; that they left Matanzas finally the 20th of April, and San Antonio the 1st of May, in all which, except the last statement, he is somewhat confused.