because it is truly told. As editor of the series I must at least
express my debt to the publishers, who have warmly adopted the idea
that truth and popular interest are inseparable; to the authors, with
whom I have discussed so often the problems of their own volumes and of
the series in general; especially to the members of the committees of
the Massachusetts Historical Society, Virginia Historical Society,
Texas Historical Society, and Wisconsin State Historical Society, whose
generous interest and suggestions in the meetings that I have held with
them were of such assistance in the laying out of the work; to the
public, who how have the opportunity of acting as judges of this
performance and whose good-will alone can prove that the series
justifies itself.

ALBERT BUSHNELL HART.




EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION This first volume of the series supplies a needed
link between the history of Europe and the history of early America;
for whether it came through a Spanish, French, English, Dutch, or
Swedish medium, or through the later immigrants from Germany, from
Italy, and from the Slavic countries, the American conception of
society and of government was originally derived from the European.
Hence the importance at the outset of knowing what that civilization
was at the time of colonization. Professor Cheyney (chapters i. and
ii.) fitly begins with an account of mediaeval commerce, especially
between Europe and Asia, and the effect of the interposition of the
Turks into the Mediterranean, and how, by their disturbance of the
established course of Asiatic trade, they turned men's minds towards