Columbus sends twelve of seventeen ships to Castile under Antonio de Torres

At this news all, as I said, felt a mixed joy, but the Admiral was the one who savored it most, and he resolved, once the ships were dispatched to Castile, to go and see the said province of Cibao with his own eyes, and to give everyone grounds to believe what they would see and touch, like Saint Thomas. He drew up a long report for the Catholic Sovereigns on the land and the state in which he was leaving things, and where he had settled. He sent them the sample of gold that Guacanagarí had given him and the one Hojeda had brought, and informed them of all he saw to be necessary. Then he dispatched the 12 ships, appointing as captain of all of them the aforesaid Antonio de Torres, brother of the nurse of Prince don Juan, to whom he gave the gold and all his dispatches. They set sail on the 2nd of February 1494. Someone has said that the Admiral sent with these ships a captain called Gorbalan, but this is not so, as I saw, as has been said, in a letter of the Admiral himself to the Sovereigns, a copy of which, written in his own hand, I had in my possession.