Humboldt, _Exam. Crit._, tom. iv. pp. 59, 267, 272-4, repeatedly states it as an undeniable fact that Vespucci was employed in Spain in fitting out the vessels for the third voyage of Columbus, up to the date of the sailing of the expedition, May 30, 1498, and consequently could not himself have sailed in May or any other month of 1497. He makes this statement on the authority of documents collected by Muñoz. Harrisse, _Bib. Am. Vet._, p. 57, states, also on the authority of Muñoz, that from April, 1497, to May 30, 1498, Vespucci was "constantly travelling from Seville to San Lúcar." Vespucci is known to have succeeded Juanoto Berardi, who died in December, 1495, in a contract to fit out vessels for the Spanish government, and to have received money on account of that contract on the 12th of January, 1496. Irving, with access to the documents of Muñoz, says that four caravels fitted out by Vespucci sailed February 3, 1496, but were driven back; and he speaks of no evidence of his presence in Spain in 1497 or 1498. Navarrete, relying on the same Muñoz documents—which consist of extracts from the books of expenses of Indian armadas in the Casa de Contratacion in Seville—gives no date to the sailing and wreck of the four vessels mentioned by Irving, but implies that the event took place before Berardi's death. After speaking of the receipt of money on the 12th of January, 1496, he states that Vespucci "went on attending to everything until the armada was despatched from San Lúcar." _Col. de Viages_, tom. iii. p. 317. He does not state that the fleet thus fitted out was that in which Columbus sailed in 1498. Muñoz in the printed portion of his work is silent on the subject. Varnhagen, _Vespuce et son Premier Voy._, p. 18, argues that Humboldt had no authority whatever for applying Navarrete's statement respecting the armada despatched from San Lúcar to the admiral's fleet, that statement having probably been his authority, and not the original documents of Muñoz; and that the four vessels whose fitting-out Vespucci personally superintended were much more probably those in which he himself sailed and made the voyage in question. Varnhagen furthermore thinks that the death of Berardi furnished a reasonable motive for the resolution formed by Vespucci to visit the Indies, and a favorable opportunity for carrying out his resolution. If it can be proved that Vespucci was in Spain in 1497 and 1498, of course the question of his claimed voyage admits of no farther discussion; but if Humboldt's only authority be his interpretation of Navarrete's statement, even if the interpretation be not unnatural or improbable, the matter must still be considered doubtful until the original Muñoz documents are produced.