We will elaborate this argument in another chapter; but (requesting the reader meanwhile to retain these premises in his mind) we will first follow Vespucci on his fourth, and last, important voyage to the southern hemisphere. In a passage appended to the letter quoted in the previous chapter, and which we herewith reproduce, Vespucci says:
"My three journeys I think I shall defer writing about in full until another time. Probably when I have returned safe and sound to my native country, with the aid and counsel of learned men, and the encouragement of friends, I shall write with care a larger work than this. Your excellency [Lorenzo de Medici] will pardon me for not having sent you the journals which I kept from day to day in this my last navigation, as I had promised to do. The king has been the cause of it, and he still retains my manuscripts. But, since, I have delayed performing this work until the present day, perhaps I shall add a _fourth journey_; for I contemplate going again to explore that southern part of the New World, and for the purpose of carrying out such intention two vessels are already armed, equipped, and supplied with provisions. I shall first go eastward, before making the voyage south; I shall then sail to the southwest, and when arrived there shall do many things for the praise and glory of God, the benefit of my country, the perpetual memory of my name, and particularly for the honor and solace of my old age, which has nearly come upon me.
"There is nothing wanting in this affair but the leave of the king, and when this is obtained, as it soon will be, we shall sail on a long voyage; and may it please God to give it a happy termination!"
This voyage was undertaken in the spring, or early summer, of 1503, and extended over twelve months, only terminating with the return to Lisbon on June 18, 1504. It was, perhaps, the least satisfactory of any Vespucci had undertaken, and his disgust is plainly apparent in the following account of it, contained in a letter to Piero Soderini, written in Lisbon a few months after his return:
"It remains for me to relate the things which were seen by me in my fourth voyage; and by reason that I have now become wearied, and also because this voyage did not result according to my wishes (in consequence of a misfortune which happened in the Atlantic Sea), I shall endeavor to be brief.