Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/628

 620 SHORT NOTICES October this after the evolution of his ideas on the route to the Indies ' (p. 54). Mr. Vignaud, by meeting objections in this ingenious manner, proves his theory to his own satisfaction, but whether this manner is in harmony with a sound critical method seems doubtful. H. P. B. In a pamphlet of about a hundred pages, Jamaica under the Spaniards (Kingston, Jamaica : Institute of Jamaica, 1919), Mr. Frank Cundall, F.S.A., and Mr. Joseph L. Pietersz give a most interesting preliminary account of the results obtained by Miss I. A. Wright in her recent re- searches* made in the Archivo de Indias at Seville under the auspices of the Institute of Jamaica. To the names of the three Spanish governors of Jamaica hitherto known, seventeen more are now added, making an almost continuous list from the first colonization of the island to its loss in 1655. The gain in other kinds of information is proportionate. From the schemes of King Ferdinand and Diego Colon at the time of the first settlement to the fruitless attempts at reconquest after the accession of Charles II of England, many passages of Jamaican history are made more fully known or even rescued from oblivion. It has been said of the records of the Spanish occupation, as they were previously known, that they were ' short and evil '. The general impression of confusion and inefl&ciency remains. The small Spanish population, estimated at 120 in 1596 (p. 18) and at 530 in 1611 (p. 34), never succeeded in developing more than a small proportion of the resources of the island. The jealojisies and conflicts of different, governing authorities made matters worse. It would be hard to imagine a more miserable feud than that which began in 1645, with the ex-governor Caballero as one of the protagonists (pp. 42-8). Caballero's successor killed him with his own hand and was then subjected, along with the abbot, to an official persecution instigated by the widow. There are, however, one or two brave and attractive figures in the story. The governor Melgarejo, at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, skilfully and energetically defended his island against the attacks of French and English sea-captains, spending his own money on the work and not discouraged by the very inadequate support of his superiors. Christoval Arnaldo de Yssassi, the last of the governors, is a figure of romance. The constitutional and economic aspects of the history cannot be very clearly traced in this book, since the authors do not attempt more than to indicate, by translated extracts with a short connecting narrative and a table of the records used, the general character of the materials now lodged in the form of transcripts in the Institute at Kingston. Their work cannot be neglected by any student of the history of Jamaica, if only for the corrections of facts, such as the date of the foundation of Spanish Town, which is 1534 and not 1520 (p. 11, n.), on the site of Caguaya, which is Passage Fort and not Fort Royal (p. 16) ; but it is rather a first sketch than a full survey of the new material. Four undated maps are reproduced, of which the earliest is signed by Gerardo Coeny, cosmographer to the king, and the remainder belong to the years 1655-6. G. N. C. In his Discours prononce a la Seance de Cldture du Congr^s des Societes Savanles a Strasbourg (Paris : Imprimerie Nationale, 1920) M. Charles