He urged haste, because he believed the world was only to last a hundred and fifty-five years longer; and, with so much before them to be done, it was necessary that they should begin.
He remembered an old vow that he had undertaken, that, within seven years of the time of his discovery, he would furnish fifty thousand foot soldiers and five thousand horsemen for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.

He now arranged in order prophecies from the Holy Scripture, passages from the writings of the Fathers, and whatever else suggested itself, mystical and hopeful, as to the success of an enterprise by which the new world could be used for the conversion of the Gentiles and for the improvement of the Christianity of the old world.
He had the assistance of a Carthusian monk, who seems to have been skilled in literary work, and the two arranged these passages in order, illustrated them with poetry, and collected them into a manuscript volume which was sent to the sovereigns.
Columbus accompanied the Book of Prophecies with one of his own long letters, written with the utmost fervor.

In this letter he begins, as Peter the Hermit might do, by urging the sovereigns to set on foot a crusade.

If they are tempted to consider his advice extravagant, he asks them how his first scheme of discovery was treated.

He shows that, as heaven had chosen him to discover the new world, heaven has also chosen him to discover the Holy Sepulchre.