ARTHUR HELPS.
London, October, 1868



PREFACE.

This Life of Columbus is one of a series of biographies prepared under my
superintendence, and for the most part taken verbatim from my "History of
the Spanish Conquest in America."

That work was written chiefly with a view to illustrate the history of
slavery, and not to give full accounts of the deeds of the discoverers and
conquerors of the New World, much less to give a condensed memoir of each
of them.

It has, therefore, been necessary to rearrange and add considerably to
these materials, and for this assistance I am indebted to the skill and
research of Mr. Herbert Preston Thomas.

Perhaps there are few of the great personages in history who have been
more talked about and written about than Christopher Columbus, the
discoverer of America. It might seem, therefore, that there is very little
that is new to be said about him. I do not think, however, that this is
altogether the case. Absorbed in, and to a certain extent overcome by the
contemplation of the principal event, we have sometimes, perhaps, been
mistaken as to the causes which led to it. We are apt to look upon
Columbus as a person who knew that there existed a great undiscovered
continent, and who made his way directly to the discovery of that
continent--springing at one bound from the known to the unknown. Whereas,