eginning, that compressing force which would have been found in the
existence of a body of natives who could not have been removed by the
outrages of Spanish cruelty, the strength of Spanish liquors, or the
virulence of Spanish diseases.[Footnote 2]

[Footnote 2: The smallpox, for instance, was a disease introduced by the
Spaniards, which the comparatively feeble constitution of the Indians
could not withstand.]

The Monarchs of Spain, too, would have been compelled to treat their new
discoveries and conquests more seriously. To have held the country at all,
they must have held it well. It would not have been Ovandos, Bobadillas,
Nicuesas and Ojedas who could have been employed to govern, discover,
conquer, colonize--and ruin by their folly--the Spanish possessions in the
Indies. The work of discovery and conquest, begun by Columbus, must then
have been entrusted to men like Cortes, the Pizarros, Vasco Nunez, or the
President Gasca; and a colony or a kingdom founded by any of these men
might well have remained a great colony, or a great kingdom, to the
present day.
ARTHUR HELPS.
London, October, 1868.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Early Discoveries in the Fifteenth Century

CHAPTER II.
Early Years of Columbus

CHAPTER III.
Columbus in Spain

CHAPTER IV.
First Voyage

CHAPTER V.
Homeward bound

CHAPTER VI.
Second Voyage of Discovery

CHAPTER VII.
Illness; Further Discoveries; Plots against Columbus

CHAPTER VIII.
Criminals sent to the Indies; Repartimientos; Insurrection

CHAPTER IX.
Columbus's Third Voyage

CHAPTER X.
Arrival at Hispaniola; Bad Treatment by Bobadlilla

CHAPTER XI.
Columbus pleads his Cause at Court; New Enterprise; Ovando

CHAPTER XII.
Remarkable Despatch; Mutiny;
Eclipse predicted, and its influence; Mutiny quelled

CHAPTER XIII.
Falling Fortunes: Conclusion

CHAPTER I. Early Discoveries in the Fifteenth Century.

LEGENDS OF THE SEA.

Modern familiarity with navigation renders it difficult for us to
appreciate adequately the greatness of the enterprise which was undertaken
by the discoverers of the New World. Seen by the light of science and of
experience, the ocean, if it has some real terrors, has no imaginary ones.
But it was quite otherwise in the fifteenth century. Geographical
knowledge was but just awakening, after ages of slumber; and throughout
those ages the wil