Perestrello, who was Discoverer of Madera and Porto Santo) he projected going to the farther Part of the East-Indies, not yet discover'd; where common Fame, and the assurance of People come from thence, told them, were Houses covered with Gold, (in some parts some of them at the Day are Guilded) Spices and other very rich Commodities in great plenty. He was oppos'd in this project by learned Men, and with Difficulty was at last believ'd by Isabella, then Queen to Ferdinand King of Spain, who being influenced by their Confessor, Luigi de S. Angelo, in favour of his Project, pawn'd her Jewels to equip Columbus, who ** Mariana, l. 20. c. 3. by this means got seventeen thousand Ducats. He set out August 1492. and went through many Disasters, endured much Pain, Watching and perpetual Labour. He by these means, kept his Men from Mutinies, and at length discover'd some Birds, afterward some Land-herbs and Fruits the Sea, and at last Saint Salvador or Guanabani, one of the Lucaie or Bahama Islands, on the 12th of October, and on the 15th he came to the North-side of Hispaniola. He left there some Men, and took thence, to shew in Spain, some Indians, Gold, Parrats, Maiz, or Indian Corn, and other valuable or strange things. On the 4th of January, 1493. he set Sail from Hispaniola for Spain, and arrived at Lisbon the 4th of March in the same year, and at Palos in Spain the the 13th of the same Month, that is, in seven Months and eleven Days from going out.
Columbus, likewise brought into Europe in his Ship, and first Voyage, from these places, the Pox, which spread so quickly all over Europe, that Antonius Benivenius, who was at that time a great and famous Practiser in Physick at Florence, in the first Chapter of his Book de Abditis nonnullis ac mirandis morborum, & sanationum causis, tellsp. 318. us, that the Lues Venerea then beginning in Spain, had spread itself through Italy, and France, and that in the Year 1496, it had possess'd many People in all the Provinces of Europe. Dodonæus, likewise tells us, that this Disease very much raged in the War that Charles VIII. King of France had with Alphonsus King of Naples in the Year 1494. and yet thinks Gulielmus de Saliceto, †† P. 318. who liv'd in 1270. Valescus de Tarenta, ‖‖Lib. 6. cap. 5 who liv'd in 1418. and Bernardus de Gordonio, who died in 1305. give us an account of some Symptoms of it.
I am of Opinion notwithstanding what these have said, and some other less material Passages in antient Writers and Historians, and what Joannes ab Arderne has written about An. 1360. and likewise what Stow ** P. 449. says of the Laws of the publick Stews in Southwark, thatthis
