The numbers, comparatively few, of the original inhabitants in each island, were rapidly removed from the scene of action; and the Spaniards lacked, at the beginning, 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.