CRIMINALS SENT TO THE INDIES.
In 1497, two very injudicious edicts were published by the Catholic Sovereigns, upon the advice, as we are told, of Columbus; one, authorizing the judges to transport criminals to the Indies; the other, giving an indulgence to all those who had committed any crime (with certain exceptions, among which heresy, lese majeste, and treason, find a place) to go out at their own expense to Hispaniola, and to serve for a certain time under the orders of the admiral. The remembrance of this advice on his part, might well have shamed Columbus from saying, as he did three years afterwards, in his most emphatic manner, "I swear that numbers of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water from God or man." It is but fair, however, to mention, that Las Casas, speaking of the colonists who went out under these conditions, says, "I have known some of them in these islands, even of those who had lost their ears, whom I always found sufficiently honest men."