cial debt of gratitude, in common with all who have studied this
subject since his arduous researches were begun. Some of the most
valuable parts of his work have consisted in the discovery,
reproduction, and collation of documents; and to some extent his pages
are practically equivalent to the original sources inspected by him in
the course of years of search through European archives, public and
private. In the present book I must have expressed dissent from his
conclusions at least as often as agreement with them, but whether one
agrees with him or not, one always finds him helpful and stimulating.
Though he has in some sort made himself a Frenchman in the course of
his labours, it is pleasant to recall the fact that M. Harrisse is by
birth our fellow-countryman; and there are surely few Americans of our
time whom students of history have more reason for holding in honour.

I have not seen Mr. Winsor's "Christopher Columbus" in time to make any
use of it. Within the last few days, while my final chapter is going to
press, I have received the sheets of it, a few days in advance of
publication. I do not find in it any references to sources of
information which I have not already fully considered, so that our
differences of opinion on sundry points may serve to show what diverse
conclusions may be drawn from the same data. The most conspicuous
difference is that which concerns the personal character of Columbus.
Mr. Winsor writes in a spirit of energetic (not to say violent) reaction
against the absurdities of Roselly de Lorgues and others who have tried
to make a saint of Columbus; and under the influence of this reaction he
offers us a picture of the great navigator that serves to raise a
pertinent question. No one can deny that Las Casas was a keen judge of
men, or that his standard of right and wrong was quite as lofty as any
one has reached in our own time. He had a much more intimate knowledge
of Columbus than any modern historian can ever hope to acquire, and he
always speaks of him with warm admiration and respect. But how could
Las Casas ever have respected the feeble, mean-spirited driveller whose
portrait Mr. Winsor asks us to accept as that of the Discoverer of
America?

If, however, instead of his biographical estimate of Columbus, we
consider Mr. Winsor's contributions toward a correct statement of the
difficult geographical questions connected with the subject, we
recognize at once the work of an acknowl