Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings

upport had been his good friend, the deceased Chancellor, the other Flemings in the royal household were, on that account first of all, interested in him and the cause he so ardently pleaded. Amo

ad in hand. The least impressionable of men could not listen to such an advocate unmoved, and M. de la Mure, profoundly affected by what he heard, offered to help his new friend by every means he could command. He was an ally worth having, for, bein

f the several governors of the islands, Rodrigo de Figueroa being sent to Hispaniola, Doctor de la Gama to Puerto Rico and Cuba, and Lope de Sosa to Darien, where he was also to succeed the actual Governor, Pedro Arias de Avila. The Council, acting upon reports which described the natives of Trinidad as

sanctuary, to which the persecuted Indians might repair, sure of finding kind treatment, and, through instruction, be converted to Christianity. The Prior declared that unless some one of these concessions was made, he would have to recall all the monks of his Order from those countries, where it was idle for them to attempt to teach Christian doctrines, as long as the Indians saw those who called themselves Christians acting in open violation of them. The contents of this letter vexed and alarmed Las Casas not a little, for he feared that if the Prior were driven to make good his threat of recalling his monks, the Indians would be abandoned, without defence, to the cruelties of the Spaniards and would soon be exterminated. His one hope of support in his own plans lay in the Dominicans, without whose aid his efforts were foredoomed to failure. He spoke to the Bishop and the members of the Cou

ith his customary uncompromising frankness, but with no result, s

of territory, the clerigo evolved a plan that promised to secure the ends for which he and the D

r power to collect the desired emigrants. The officials of India House in Seville were instructed to receive and attend to those intending to emigrate under Las Casas, when they arrived in Seville; they were likewise directed to prepare the necessary ships to transport them to America. It was necessary that Las Casas should be accompanied on his recruiting tour through the country by some trustworthy man to help him in enrolling his emigrants, and, as fate would have it, his choice fell most unfortunately upon one

undred men, vagabonds, loafers, and tapsters, [pg 117] of whom few were labourers and none fit for colonists. These unpromising recruits were gathered in Seville, where the officials of India House were at a loss to know what to do with them; they finally sailed, but, as the colonial authorities had received no notice concerning them, they landed, destitu

free country under the King's protection. The great nobles were ill-pleased at this desertion of their feudatories, and Las Casas soon found himself at loggerheads with the Constable of Castile, whose villagers at Berlanga were inscribing themselves in great numbers; the Constable ordered him to quit his estates. On an estate called Rello, belonging to the Count of Coruna, out of thirty householders twenty-nine put down their names as e

of what had been done and addressed to Las Casas the ob

e advantages for his colonists, presented a petition asking that they should be maintained for one year at the royal expense. The vexation of the Bishop of Burgos augmented visibly at this fresh claim for assistance, and he roundly declared such a concession would cost the Crown more than an armada of tw

attempt was even made to secure another leader for the undertaking, but the news of this design was not slow in reaching him, and he promptly published far and wide, in the district whe

By the death of his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian, the succession was open, though both Francis I. of France and Henry VIII. of England aspired to

g