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Personal Narrative of the First Voyage of Columbus to America
Personal Narrative of the First Voyage of Columbus to America Author:Christopher Columbus Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. The public has been already informed respecting the discovery and publication of the original of the following work, but it will be prop... more »er to state the principal circumstances here. In the year 1789 the King of Spain, Charles IV. conceived the design of establishing at Cadiz a repository and library to contain the historical and scientific works relating to the Marine, which were known to exist in the various collections in the kingdom. For this purpose he commissioned Don Martin Fernandez de Nav- arrete, an officer of rank in the naval department of the realm, to undertake an examination of all the libraries and depositories both public and private, in the kingdom, in order to obtain copies of works relating to the proposed object. In prosecution of this plan, Don Martin began the next year to explore the collection of manuscripts in the royal library at Madrid, extending his researches at times to the archives of the Marquisses of Santa Cruz, North American Review, No. LIH, and LV. and Villa Franca, and the Duke of Medinasidonia. He afterwards proceeded to examine the royal collections of manuscripts at St. Isidore and the Escurial. In the course of these inquiries, being in the immediate search of the termination to the fabulous narrative of Lorenzo Ferrer Maldonado, with a view to make some examinations respecting its authenticity, he was directed to the archives of the Duke del Infantado, where it was understood, there was a probability that it might be found. In his researches in this quarter, he met with two manuscripts which proved on examination to be the imrralircs of the first and third voyages of Columbus. The disturbed state of the kingdom which followed this period, and the official duties which interrupted the enterprise of Don Ma...« less