Negotiations of a practical nature were now begun; old friends--Talavera, Luis de Santangel, and the Grand Cardinal himself--were all brought into consultation with the result that matters soon got to the documentary stage.

Here, however, there was a slight hitch.

It was not simply a matter of granting two, or three ships.

The Genoese was making a bargain, and asking an impossible price.

Even the great grandees and Court officials, accustomed to the glitter and dignity of titles, rubbed their eyes with astonishment, when they saw what Columbus was demanding.
He who had been suing for privileges was now making conditions.