HE course of this narrative is clofely connected with the life of Las Cafas,

fo much fo, that his private affairs and

tary thoughts become matters of the utmost portance to the welfare, or the reverse, of no onfiderable portion of the new world.

Las Cafas, as the reader will hereafter fee, had ny troubles and forrows to bear; but at this -ticular period he was bleffed with that which always one of the greatest bleffings, but which, ometimes fancy, like hofpitality in a partially ilized country, seems to have flourished more, more needed, in rude hard times. In a word, he 1 a real friend. This friend's name was Pedro la Renteria. Their friendship was most intite and had fubfifted for many years. De Renia, as often happens in friendship, presented a ious contraft to Las Cafas. He was a man o might well have been a monk, a devout,

contemplative perfon, given much to folitude and prayer; and Las Cafas mentions a trait in his character which exactly coincides with the rest of it, namely, that he was a moft liberal man, but his liberality seemed rather to flow from habit and a carelessness about worldly goods than from a refolved judgment and benevolence. This good man's occupations, however, were entirely secular, and he was employed by Diego Velasquez as alcalde.

When the island was confidered fettled and the governor began to give repartimientos, knowing the friendship that exifted between Las Cafas and Renteria, he gave them a large tract of land in common and Indians in repartimiento. This land of theirs was about a league from Xagua, on the river Arimás; * and there they lived, the Padre having the greater part of the management of the joint affairs, as being much the more lively and the bufier man. Indeed he confeffes that he was as much engaged as others in fending his Indians to the mines and making as large a profit of their

* "Llegamos á un pueblo de Indios, que se dezia Yaguarama, "el qual era en aquella fazon del Padre Fray Bartolome de las "Cafas, que era Clérigo Presbítero, y defpues le conocí Fraile "Domínico, y llegó á fer Obifpo de Echiapa: y los Indios de aquel pueblo nos dieron de comer."-BERNAL DIaz, c. 7.

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labour as poffible. At the fame time, however, he was kind to them perfonally and provided carefully for their fuftenance; but, to use his own words," he took no more heed than the other

Spaniards to bethink himself that his Indians "were unbelievers, and of the duty that it was on "his part to give them instruction and to bring "them to the bofom of the church of Chrift."

As there was but one other clerigo in the whole island, it was neceffary for Las Cafas occafionally to say mass and to preach. It happened that he had to do fo at " the Feaft of Pentecoft" in the year 1415; and happening to study either the fermons that he preached himself or that he heard the other clerigo preach at this time, he came to Las Cafas thinking with himself on certain paffages (" autho"rities" he calls them) of Scripture. The 34th Chapter of Ecclefiafticus, the 18th, 19th, 20th, 21ft and 22nd verses first arrested and then enchained his attention. "He that facrificeth of "a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is ri"diculous: and the gifts of unjust men are not "accepted.

communes

with himfelf.

"The most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked: neither is he pacified for "fin by the multitude of facrifices.

"Whofo bringeth an offering of the goods of

<< the poor doeth as one that killeth the fon before ❝ his father's eyes.

"The bread of the needy is their life; he that "defraudeth him thereof is a man of blood.

"He that taketh away his neighbour's living "flayeth him; and he that defraudeth the labourer "of his hire is a bloodfhedder."

I think that the clerigo might have dwelt upon the remaining verses of the chapter with profit. "When one prayeth, and another curseth, "whofe voice will the Lord hear?

"He that washeth himself after the touching " of a dead body, if he touch it again, what avail"eth his washing.

"So it is with a man that fafteth for his fins, " and goeth again and doeth the fame: who will "hear his prayer? or what doth his humbling "profit him?"

In recounting this converfion of his, Las Cafas takes care to say, that what he had formerly heard the Dominicans preach in Hifpaniola, was, at this critical period of his life, of great service to him. Then he had only flighted their words; but he now particularly remembers a conteft he had with a certain father, who refused to give him abfolution, because he poffeffed Indians. This is an

inftance of the great mistake it may be, to hold your tongue about the truth, because it will provoke contest and apparently harden an adversary in his opinion. The truths which he has heard fink into a man at fome time or other: and, even when he retires from a contest, apparently fixed in his own conceits, you would find fometimes, that if he had to renew the conteft the next day, he would not take up quite the fame position that he held before. The good feed fown by the Dominicans had now, after being buried for some years but not dead, found a moft fruitful foil; and they shot up in the ardent foul of the clerigo like grain in the warm land of the tropics which he ftood upon. Las Cafas ftudied the principles of the matter; from the principles he turned to confidering the facts about him; and with his candid mind thus fully aroused, he foon came to the conclufion that the system of repartimientos was iniquitous, and that he must preach against it.

What then muft he do with his own Indians? Alas, it was neceffary to give them up; not that he grudged giving them up for any worldly reafon, but he felt that no one in Cuba would be as confiderate towards them even as he, in the days of his darkness, had been; and that they would be worked to death-as indeed they were. But