the monastery; but they determined to fend a complaint to the king, and afterwards to dispatch a Franciscan (monk against monk) to argue their cafe at Court. Thither the colonists had already sent two agents to plead for having the Indians affigned to them for two or three lives, or in perpetuity.

The Francifcan chofen for this embaffage was Alonso de Efpinal, and he went out in great favour with the inhabitants of St. Domingo, having all his wants amply provided for. The Dominicans refolved to fend their advocate; and found two or three pious perfons from whom they contrived to procure the wherewithal for his voyage. Father Antonio, as might be expected, was the monk chofen by the Dominicans.

When the letters from the authorities of St. Domingo, complaining of the contumacious conduct of the Dominicans, reached the King, he fent for the head of their order in Spain, and made much complaint to him of the scandal which had been occafioned in the colony by this preaching. Not long afterwards came the agents from the principal parties themselves; Father Antonio on behalf of the Dominicans, and Father Alonso on behalf of the colonifts. The latter

was well received by the people in authority, had
free access to the king, and was much favoured
by him. Father Antonio, on the contrary, was
little friended, found official doors generally closed
to him, and porters very peremptory. At last
one day, after an ineffectual attempt to perfuade
fome porter, or door-deeper, to admit him to
the royal presence, he watches an opportunity
while the porter is fpeaking to fome one else,
makes a bold rush at the door, paffes the obstacle,
and finds himself at once in the royal prefence,
fupplicating for an audience.
kindly to him, and in reply to his requeft to be

The king spoke

heard, answered thus, "Say, Father, what you
"will." Father Antonio, accordingly, takes out
his papers and begins his ftatement. In the
course of it, as an illuftration of the cruelty of
the Spaniards towards the Indians, he mentions
that fome Spaniards ftanding together joking,
near a river, one of them took up a little Indian
child, of one or two years old, and merely for
the fun of the thing, threw it over the heads
of the others into the water. He was heard to
fay, as he turned back and faw the little creature
rifing once or twice to the furface, "You boil ·
<c up,
little wretch, do you?" (Bullis, cuerpo de
tal, bullis.)

Father

Antonio

has an audience of

the king.

No one, as far as I know, has ever supposed Ferdinand to be a cruel man; and I should think he would have had an especial dislike to wanton cruelty-to any waste of wickedness. On hearing this story, he exclaimed, "Is this poffible?" "Not only poffible, but neceffary," replied the Father, "for fo the thing happened and cannot (now) be "left to be done."* He means, I suppose, that it has the neceffity incident to a past transaction, of having been what it was. Then the monk went on to fay, "Did your Highness command "fuch things? I am fure you did not." "No, "by God, nor ever in my life," replied Ferdinand. Father Antonio then refumed his statement, and the refult was, that the King, after having heard it all, declared that he would give orders for the matter to be looked to immediately with diligence. Upon that the monk rose, and, after having kiffed the king's hands, left the royal presence with the consciousness that he had amply juftified his boldness.

The king was true to his word, and lost no time in fummoning a Junta to confider the matter which Father Antonio had urged upon him.

*àntes es neceffario, por que pafó afi, y no puede dejar de fer hecho. Las Cafas, Hift.Gen. Tercera Parte, tom. 1, cap. 6.

formed to

the cafe of

the Indi

The Junta was formed partly of perfons belong- A Junta ing to the King's Council and partly of new men, confider chiefly Theologians. This plan of forming a Junta feems by no means a bad way of getting ans. work done for a government; and the mixture of those who had official experience, and who would have official refponfibility, with those who were supposed to be peculiarly cognizant of the principles upon which the legislation in the particular cafe should proceed, appears a happy device. I cannot say, however, that this Junta showed any great fagacity in dealing with the matter in hand, though, I dare say, their intelligence respecting it was, at the least, not below that of the principal men of their age and country.

Herrera says, that the Junta first confidered the queftion on the ground that the Indians were not free; and that afterwards Ferdinand resubmitted it to them, ordering them to take as their bafis the words of Isabella's will respecting the Indians. It may have been fo; but I find nothing to fupport this statement'; and am inclined to think that the following account, which is that of Las Cafas, is the true one.

He does not speak of any interference on the part of the king with the powers of the Junta ; but merely fays that after having had many con

the Junta.

ferences and heard evidence on both fides, they Decifion of came to a decifion, which may be fummed up thus-That the Indians are free; that they fhould be inftructed in the Chriftian Faith; that they may be ordered to work, but so that their working fhould not hinder their converfion, and should be such as they could bear; that they fhould have cottages and land of their own, and time to work it; that they fhould be made to hold communication with the Chriftians; and that they should receive wages, not paid in money but in clothes and furniture for their cottages.

These propofitions were put in due form and were given to the king as the answer of the Junta; and it was figned by Bishop Fonseca, who had all along had the management of Indian affairs, by Doctor Palacios Rubios, a learned jurist and writer of those days, by the Licentiates Santiago, de Sofa, and Gregorio, and by Thomas Duran, Peter de Covarrubias and Mathias de Paz, who were monks. Several of these perfons, afterwards, when they came to understand the question better, favoured the Indians; and it appears that, even at this time, one of them, Mathias de Paz, was not satisfied with the decifion of the Junta, for he wrote a work the substance of which was, that the king could not give enco