Columbus decides God grounded his ship so he would build a fortress

… But it is right that this tower be built, and that things be kept as they ought to be kept, being so far from Your Highnesses; and so that they may know the skill of Your Highnesses’ people and what they can do, so that they may obey them with love and fear; and so they will have planks to build the whole fortress from, and provisions of bread and wine for more than a year, and seeds to sow, and the ship’s boat, and a caulker, and a carpenter, and a gunner, and a cooper, and many among them men who greatly desire, for the service of Your Highnesses and to please me, to learn of the mine where the gold is gathered. So everything has come very much to the purpose for this beginning to be made. And above all, that when the ship ran aground it was so gentle that it was hardly felt, and there was neither wave nor wind.” All this the Admiral says. And he adds more, to show that it was great good fortune and the determined will of God that the ship ran aground there so that he would leave people there: …