CHAP. I I . ]
CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS.
31
principally engaged on the Mediterranean and up the Levant; sometimes in commercial voyages ; sometimes in the warlike con tests between the Italian states; sometimes in pious and pre datory expeditions against the Infidels.
Historians have made
him in 1474 captain of several Genoese ships, in the service of Louis X I of France, and endangering the peace between that country and Spain by running down and capturing Spanish ves sels at sea, on his own responsibility, as a reprisal for an irruption of the Spaniards into Roussillon.*
Again, in 1475, he is repre
sented as brushing with his Genoese squadron in ruffling bravado by a Venetian fleet stationed off the island of Cyprus, shouting “ Viva San Georgio !” the old war-cry of Genoa, thus endeavor ing to pique the jealous pride of the Venetians and provoke a combat, though the rival republics were at peace at the time. These transactions, however, have been erroneously attributed to Columbus.
They were the deeds, or misdeeds, either of his
relative the old Genoese admiral, or of a nephew of the same, of kindred spirit, called Colombo the Younger, to distinguish him from his uncle.
They both appear to have been fond of rough
encounters, and not very scrupulous as to the mode of bringing them about.
Fernando Columbus describes this Colombo the
Younger as a famous corsair, so terrible for his deeds against the Infidels, that the Moorish mothers used to frighten their unruly children with his name.
Columbus sailed with him occasionally
as he had done with his uncle, and, according to Fernando's account, commanded a vessel in his squadron on an eventful occasion. Colombo the Younger, having heard that four Venetian gal* Chaufepie, Suppl. to Bayle, vol. ii. article “ Columbus.”