As a matter of convenience, the usual English custom
has been followed of anglicising the name of King
Ferdinand V of Aragon: in other cases the Spanish
form of the name has been preserved--Fernando or
Hernando.

Since the testimony of Las Casas concerning the
treatment of the Indians is suspect to some Spaniards
and since his numbers are certainly exaggerated, no use
has been made in this volume of that part of the writings
of Las Casas.

Acknowledgment is here made to the Syndics of the
Cambridge University Press for permission to repro-
duce in Chapter XXVI two or three paragraphs from
A History of the Argentine Republic published by the
University Press.

One point deserves emphasis: whatever be the stand-
point of time or place from which the work of the
Spanish Conquistadores should be judged, their work
should first be viewed from the Golden Tower by the
water-side at Seville and through the eyes of the genera-
tion which saw the cross raised on the towers of the
Alhambra and, twenty-seven years later, the accession
of the King of Spain to the imperial throne.

F. A. K.

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