The Catholic World, Vol. 06, October, 1867 to March, 1868.

by Various

What Doctor Marks died of.

Some one at our camp-fire had chanced to mention Dr. Marks, which called forth the comment that the doctor had died of heart-disease—been found dead in his bed.

Major Arnold lifted his dark, bright eyes from dreaming over the coals, and looked steadily at the last speaker. "Died of heart-disease?" he repeated, with a slightly sceptical inflection.

"Yes, sir!"—very positively.

The major looked into the fire again, and thoughtfully thridded his beard through his fingers, while he appeared to weigh the pros and cons of some impulse in his mind. The pros tilted the beam, and the major spoke. But he first drew his hand down across his eyes, and swept away, with that pass, the present scene of myriad tents, ghostly-white in the moonlight, or shining crimson in the light of scattered fires; of closely-crowding, shadow-haunted southern crags and forests that lifted themselves from our feet to the horizon, their black and ragged rim standing boldly out against a sky that was flooded with the mellow radiance of the full moon, all its stars and all its purple swamped in that silent and melancholy tide.

"Poor Anne Atherton!" I had not thought that our rough major could speak so softly. "I had been going to the door every day, for weeks, to ask how she was, hoping in spite of the doctors. But one morning, when I reached the steps, I saw a strip of crape tied round the bell-knob. No need of questions that day. Poor little Anne was gone!

"I call her little; but she was eighteen, and well-grown. It is only a fond way of intimating that she crept into all our hearts. People liked her for her honest beauty, her ready smile, and her cheerful voice. Anne was not one of your bilious-sublime sort, but a strong, sweet, sensible girl, with an apple-blossom complexion and a clear conscience. Her family were old friends of mine, and Anne was engaged and about to be married to my particular crony—John Sharon—one of the best fellows that ever trod shoe-leather. Poor John! My heart ached for him as I went down-town that day.

"There's a little Scottish poem that reminded me, the first time I read it, of John Sharon's loves and hates:

'Tweed said to Till,
"What gars ye rin sae still?"
Till said to Tweed,
"Though ye rin wi' speed,
And I rin slaw,
Whar ye droon ae man,
I droon twa."'

"The current of John's feelings was like the current of Till river.

"That evening I went up to the house with my arms full of white flowers. Minnie Atherton wanted me to go in to see her sister; but I hesitated. I had always disliked to look at a corpse, and I hated to lose from my mind the picture it held of that rosy-cheeked girl, and take in its place ever so fair an image of death.

"'She looks very peaceful,' Minnie said tearfully, seeing my unwillingness. 'And you may be able to comfort John. We can't get him away from her.'

"I never was much at comforting people. All that I know how to say to a crying woman is, 'Now, don't, my dear!' and to a crying man I couldn't utter a word. Since then I have marched up to a battery with less shaking of the nerves than I felt on that day when I went into the darkened room where Anne Atherton lay dead, and John Sharon sat looking at her. There were no tears in his eyes, there was no trembling in his lip or voice. He looked as though he had so long gazed upon and studied that face of hers that his own had learned the secret of its frozen calm. I could not tell which of the two was whiter.

"How beautiful she was! There was still a faint pink in her lips; but where that marvellous rich color had bloomed in the cheeks, and a fainter tint in the small ears and rounded chin, there was now only pure white. But that pallor revealed many an exquisite outline which had been unnoted when her color dazzled the eyes. Her head was turned aside, with one hand under the cheek, and her long, fair hair was put back from the face, and lay in shining ripples down her shoulders and back. She wore her bridal dress and veil, some filmy, frosty stuff, that looked as though it might melt, being so near the cluster of candles that burned at her head. There was no light in the room but from those candles.

"Minnie scattered my flowers over her sister's hair and dress. 'I am glad that you brought tuberoses,' she said, 'Anne always loved them.'

"A long, slow sigh heaved John Sharon's breast. He carefully took up one of the blossoms and looked it all over—the flower that Anne had loved! Then he laid it tenderly back again. Not all the blooms of earth could, for any other reason, have won a glance from him at that moment; but I know that he has a tuberose engraven as sharply upon his memory as you ever saw any white flower cut upon a tomb-stone.

"Presently Minnie left the room, glancing at me as she went. I ventured to lay my hand on John's shoulder. I know it, Arnold,' he said quietly. 'You would help me if you could. But there is no help on earth. Don't worry about me. I can't leave while she is above ground. There will be time enough, by and by, for rest.'

"'I have no word of consolation to offer,' I said.

"'But I have a thought that consoles me,' he replied, leaning forward with tender passion to lay his hand on hers; 'I have not altogether lost her. I shall meet her again, my darling! I shall meet her again!'

"I turned away and left them there hand in hand.

"When I went up the next morning I found John trembling with excitement. 'I have just restrained myself from taking Dr. Marks's life!' he said, his teeth fairly chattering. 'What do you think that the brute dared to propose to me? He wants to make a post-mortem examination of Anne! That young form that the hand of man has never touched, to be cut up for the gratification of a mere professional curiosity! I told him to run for his life, or I would strangle him.'

"Telling this, John panted like a man out of breath.

"I tried to soothe him. 'These doctors get used to everything,' I said. 'Marks could have no idea how you feel about it.'

"He wrung his hands, still shivering with loathing of the thought that had been forced on him. 'I can't get over it!' he said. 'I am sorry that he was called in at the consultation. If I had known in season, he should not have come. He is a coarse-grained fellow, who, for the sake of gratifying his curiosity about a disease, would outrage all the decencies of life. 'I believe, Arnold—' here John choked with the words he would have uttered.

"'My dear fellow, try to forget it,' I said. 'He has asked, and you have refused, and there's an end of the matter.'

"'I don't believe that it is ended,' John said, looking at me strangely.

"'You don't mean—' I began.

"But he lifted his hand as though he could not bear to have the thought put into words. 'I shall watch her grave every night for a week,' he said. 'Will you watch with me tonight, Arnold?'

"I promised, and we parted.

"Anne Atherton's case was a peculiar one. They had called it quick consumption, for want of a better name. She always persisted in saying that she had swallowed something sharp like a pin, and that it had entered her left lung; but of all her physicians, Doctor Marks was the only one who believed it possible that she might be right. On the strength of this half agreement he had proposed the examination.

"The South cemetery, just outside the city, used to be the paradise of body-snatchers. It was in a lonesome neighborhood, and two sides bordered on the open country. Many a grave in that cemetery had given up its dead to the dissecting-knife, while the bereaved ones at home little dreamed that its sacred rest had been disturbed. The Athertons had a lot there, and Anne was buried in it. We covered the new-made grave with evergreens, wreath linked in wreath, the whole sprinkled with white flowers—a pretty counterpane for the fair sleeper below.

"It was five minutes past nine in the evening when I vaulted over the stone wall, and walked down the central avenue. The Atherton lot was not far from the entrance, and instead of a high fence, with gate and lock like the others, it was surrounded only by a low rim of granite. As I approached, I saw the tall, white monument in the centre, and John Sharon leaning against it, and looking down on the wreath-covered mound at his feet. He started when he heard my step, and came to meet me, taking my hand in a strong, cold clasp.

"'We will sit here,' he said, leading me to a shady nook at the other side of the avenue.

"The place he had selected was a grove of Norway spruces which formed a half-circle, the open side facing the Atherton lot, and not more than two rods distant from it. Thoughtful for my comfort, though indifferent to his own, John had thrown a shawl over the horizontal slab of marble in the centre of this grave, and on that we seated ourselves. He had brought, too, a little flask of brandy, which he pressed into my hand, but would not taste of himself. It did not come amiss; for the season was the last of October, and the night chilly, though clear and calm.

"I asked John what he meant to do if the doctor should make his appearance.

"'I shall frighten him,' he said. 'I have my pistol here, and mean to fire it. I couldn't bear to have a fight over her grave.'

"We sat there and awaited in silence, John with his eyes fixed on the mound across the way. The last ray of the setting moon touched with a white lustre its wreaths, and every little ghost of a flower, then slipped up the shaft of marble near by, pointed with a luminous finger to the 'rest in peace,' engraven there, showed name after name, and date after date, stole up the cross at the top, lingered an instant on its summit, then melted into the air. Following its flight with my glance, I saw that the sky was of a pale, transparent gray, with a few large stars in it. Clearly out against this background stood the roofs and spires of that sleeping city that breathed while it slept, and more clearly yet the monuments, and a fine tracery of the bare trees, branch, stem, and twig showing delicate as lace-work, of that nearer city which slept in awful, breathless silence, never stirring for sunrise nor sunset, never starting at any alarm, nor opening its eyes, let who would go by.

"The evening had been calm, but as it grew toward midnight a faint and fitful breeze came now and then, like a sigh, setting that net-work of branches in a shiver, and sweeping the dry leaves about with a low and mournful rustling. The place and time, the silence that was only broken by that weird and spirit-like wind, and yet more, the face of my companion, affected me strongly. John sat leaning slightly forward, his hands clasped on his knees, his gaze fixed on that grave he had come to watch, and as motionless as any stone about us. The frozen look of his face chilled me. I could not see nor hear that he breathed; and there was no movement of an eyelid even. I would have spoken to him if I had dared. I longed for some sound which would startle him out of that trance; but there he sat motionless, apparently lifeless.

"I took a swallow of brandy and tried to occupy my thoughts otherwise. I looked through the interstices of the trees near me and counted grave-stones. Close by were two old sunken graves with slate stones leaning awry at their heads, where lay, or had lain, grandfather and grandmother Sawyer—a later John Anderson and his wife, who had gone, hand in hand, up and down the hill, and now slept thegither at the foot. I say they had lain there; for, in the fifty odd years since their burial, it was most probable that their dust had left its place beneath those tumble-down slate stones and gone about other business, rising, may be, in grasses and flowers. Not much of the old couple left in their coffins, be sure. Perhaps the children had carried the last of them away in violets and mayweed, that very summer. Possibly the birds had pecked them up, in one shape or another.

"Would John Sharon never move?

"I turned and peered back to where a small white cross stood, looking like a child in its night-gown, with arms extended. I could fancy some dear little frightened thing coming to me in that lonely place, silent from fear, or only faintly whimpering, all of a tremor, poor babe! till I should reach and clasp it safe. The rustling of the leaves was its little bare feet in them, the sigh of air was its sobbing breath.

"I gave myself a shake. Well, to be sure! a white marble cross to mark where a child had been buried a year or two before. I remembered having seen, in June, a red-ripe strawberry on that grave, looking as though the little creature's mouth were put up through the sod to be kissed.

"I turned to John Sharon again. He had not stirred. I looked at the grave he watched, and wondered if, with that steadfast gaze, he could pierce the sod, as clairvoyants tell, and see Anne lying, cold and lovely, far below, with one hand under her cheek and the other on her breast, and her hair flowing down unbound, never again to float on any breeze, to toss with any light motion of hers, to be twisted about his fingers.

"I turned quickly to touch him, but, as I raised my hand, he started. A sough of air had arisen, faint but far-reaching; the leaves rustled and crept all about the many graves; and through that sound I heard a step.

"John's form came erect, as though stiffened by a galvanic shock, and he sharply turned his head aside to listen. For one moment there was silence again, then a sound of feet carefully treading down the avenue toward us. I heard the breath shiver through John's teeth, and saw him take something from his breast. Then two men came stealing across our view, their forms, as we sat low, defined against the sky. One was unknown to me, but the other was easy to recognize—Dr. Marks's large, athletic form loomed against the stars. Both men carried spades, and the doctor had a sack hanging over his arm. They went directly to the Atherton lot, and, after whispering together for a moment, the smaller man stooped to pull away the wreaths from the grave, and Dr. Marks set his spade to the earth and his foot to the spade.

"'We must make haste,' I heard him say. 'Our time is short.'

"His was shorter than he knew.

"Without looking directly at John, I had seen him come forward with his knee to the ground, and raise his hand level with his eyes, and I was aware of a flicker before his face, as of light on polished metal. There was a faint sound of the spade thrust through loose gravel, and, as he heard it,' John started, and cried out as if the thrust had been through his heart. At the same instant a flame leaped out from the gloom wherein we lurked, the silence cracked with a sharp report, and both men dropped their spades and ran.

"John started to his feet, hastened to the grave which he had saved from profanation, and, after having removed from it, with loving care, every sign of disturbance, threw himself upon it, and sobbed as though his heart would break."

The major paused, brushed his hand across his eyes, and gazed a moment longer into the coals, in which he had seemed to read that story. Then he looked up quickly, straightened himself, and became aware again of the southern night, the many tents, and the fire-lighted faces of soldiers listening toward him.

"I had my suspicions," he resumed, in a changed voice, "that John's shot was not so harmless as he had intended it to be; but I said nothing to him, and when he told me to go home, I went. When I reached the street, I saw two men walking slowly away, one supporting the other. The next day I heard that Dr. Marks was dead. Strangely enough, we were able to keep the knowledge from John. He never left the house, except at night, till after a week, when we joined our regiments; and since then he has had enough to think of and to do without inquiring after Dr. Marks's health.

"The doctor's family said he died of heart-disease; and I don't blame them for putting the best face they could on the affair. The hearts of most people, when they die, have something the matter with them—they are likely to stop."

---

Bartoleme Las Casas.
[Footnote 76]

[Footnote 76: The Life of Las Casas, "The Apostle of the Indies." By Arthur Helps. London: Bell & Daldy. 1868. 12mo, pp. 292. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, New York.]

Is The Charge In History Against Him Sustained?

Of all the great men of the Spanish race who ever visited the shores of the American continent, it may with truth be said that Bartoleme de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa, was the greatest. His personal virtues, in which he surpassed others, were only equalled by the exalted purpose to which his long life was exclusively devoted. His career was beset with perils that would have appalled one who had not the courage and the constancy of a paladin; his toils, privations, and sufferings were without number. The insults, contumely, scorn, and malice to which he was daily, hourly exposed, not from a few only, but from all of his countrymen in the new world, were enough to crush the stoutest heart. He was, preeminently, the most hated, the most despised, the most universally unpopular being that crossed the broad Atlantic from Spain. Sometimes they denied him shelter; sometimes they refused him food; sometimes they threatened his safety, in premeditated assaults for his assassination; they fled from his presence at the altar as they would flee from a pestilence; and they compelled him often to become a fugitive in order to preserve his life.

Not only in America, but in Europe also, was he subjected to abuse and ridicule; but in Europe these were not universal. Public opinion was there divided. Those who had returned from the Western Indies, covered with renown and rolling in riches, who were celebrated in story, not only after the manner of knights-errant in romance, but in the very words, phrases, and language of romance—those who went forth from home, poor, needy, plebeian, and came back with untold wealth, to intermarry with the families of the highest grandees, to intermix their blood with the purest hidalgo, poured, forth their concentrated wrath upon his devoted head. But, on the other hand, courtiers all-powerful, prime ministers, and sovereigns received him with open arms, granted him prolonged audience, and commiserated his troubles, sympathizing deeply in his noble undertaking. In secret, however, they had often to regret their inability to render him the aid required for its success. With the clergy, and especially among the highest prelates, the confessors of royalty, the professors of the universities, the bishops, the archbishops, the primates, and cardinals, his return was greeted with the same satisfaction. From the lowly cloister to the imperial palace the same good wishes for him prevailed.

In the respectable classes of society at large, a singular reception awaited him. Although they venerate him as one among the best of mankind, they manifested their regard in the most opposite deportment. When he ascended the pulpit to discourse before the pious upon the unheard-of outrages, the fiendish wickedness, the appalling cruelties inflicted by Christians, and moreover, Christians who were their countrymen, upon simple, confiding, weak, inoffensive thousands and tens of thousands of Indians in the new world, the horror and abhorrence of congregations knew no bounds. Their fears of Divine vengeance falling upon themselves rose in the same proportion, until they stood aghast lest a national calamity should come upon them, like unto that which swept away of old the cities of the plain. On the other hand, that portion of the public which is light-minded, full of levity, and for ever in search of novelty, encountered him elsewhere, on the plaza, in the college court, on the prado, where he walked under the trees, or at a posada where he dined; and they paused to listen to his talk, for he talked much and too often on the same theme—the rapacity and brutality of the cavaliers to the helpless, the innocent, the ignorant, defenceless aborigines—the adopted children of the holy father at Rome, the accepted wards confided to the tender keeping of the good Queen Isabella of blessed memory, to christianize and to civilize. While the monk poured forth an eloquent statement of their wrongs, the when, the where, and on what occasion, he named no names, in charity to the bad men; but his hearers made the proper application, well knowing the persons from common report; those millionaires just returned, whose mushroom bloom of dunghill beauty, outshone the roseate lustre of the ancient Guzmans and Colonas.

The successful adventurers to the Indies of the West had already received the popular and insulting nickname of the Cachopins of Laredo; they were of the same breed with the Indian nabobs of England in afterdays, and of the shoddy in our own. While, therefore, the single-minded monk, in the fervor of his eloquence, in the overflowing zeal for his cause, narrated what these people had done to the natives, his audience were learning how these men had made their money; and the more facts and indignation exhibited by the speaker, the more highly were they amused, the more heartily did they shake with silent laughter. The monk saw the scenes in the most serious light; they saw them in the most ludicrous aspect; for they were quietly in their mind contrasting the world-wide extent between Cachopin pretensions and Cachopin merit. And these, thought they, these baseborn and brutish fellows, who are receiving patents of nobility by the score, who aspire to quarter their crests upon the aristocratic escutcheon possessed by grandees of the first class, emblazoned with heraldic bears, eagles, lions, elephants, and leopards, borne, centuries before, upon banners of that chivalry who fought for Christendom at the cave of Covodonga, and for the preeminence of Spanish honor, courage, and courtesy over France at the rough vale of Roncesvalles—these are the fellows who wish to blend those proud emblematic animals with their new coats of arms, the tobacco leaf, the tomata, the roasting ear of Indian corn, the sweet potato, perhaps, the appropriate devices for the conquerors clubbed with a title taken from a miserable fish-town, in the meanest, poverty-stricken, peddler-producing province in the realm. [Footnote 77]

[Footnote 77: The Cachopin figured in the comedies, farces, romances, and lively pastorals of that age.
In the beautiful pastoral of the Diana, by Jorgé Montemayor, in a scene between Fabio, the page, and Felismena, who is disguised as a boy, Fabio says:
"I promise you on the faith of a hidalgo, (which I am, for my father is a Cachopin of Laredo,) that my master has better terms."—See Book 2, p. 87; the edition of 1542.
Don Quixote met the travellers on the road, and of course described the beauty of his Dulcinea, and when asked who she was—
"Her lineage, race, ancestry," answered the Don, "is not of the old Roman Curtius, nor the modern Colonas, nor the Moncadas of Catalonia, the Guerras of Aragon, nor Gusmans of Castile, but of Tobosa de la Mancha."
"And mine," said the traveller, "is of the Cachopins of Laredo.">[

The great object which Las Casas desired to attain was, in its magnitude, commensurate with the mighty convulsions produced in the minds of his own nationality. It was not to protect or defend a parish, or a diocese, or a state from oppression, but to save from destruction a continent, a hemisphere of the habitable globe; it was to snatch and to shield millions of the natives in the Indies of the West from slavery to the white race; for, enslaved, the feeble Indian was sure to sink under the burdens imposed, most of them perishing within two months, and none of them surviving two years. If they went down to the grave in their ignorance and infidelity, their souls might be without the pale of salvation in their unregenerate state; if they were civilized, believed in Christ, and were baptized, what glory would redound to God, what treasure laid up in heaven for those aiding in their conversion, what myriads of communicants added to the church! Natural commiseration for their hard lot in this world, spiritual considerations for their fate in the next, along with reward held out to those who alleviated their distress now and prepared them for eternal happiness hereafter, were the exalted motives that prompted Las Casas to undertake the herculean task.

With such sublime intentions, his ardor was strengthened to undergo every toil and privation the body can suffer, to endure every agony, every indignity the spirit can receive. The measures he adopted for success, the means he employed to sustain them, the instruments he made use of, constitute the materials for his life. These were numerous, varied, dissimilar, and seemingly discordant. One was the simple being, almost in a state of nature in the rudest hut, living upon roots, sheltered by a frail canopy of leaves, clothed with a rabbit-skin or a yard of cotton, or without any covering at all, and possessed of an intellect just dawning into consciousness of its faculties, so that the common, almost universal opinion was that he did not as yet belong to the human species, but was born to live, to be worked, and to die like beasts of the field. On the other hand, Las Casas invoked the assistance of the most illustrious of the age, the refined and intellectual in the most powerful state in Europe. He impressed his thoughts upon the august Cesar, seated upon his imperial throne, who claimed legitimate succession in the divine line from the celestial deity.

For fifty years was his time devoted to this cause, with varied hope of success and disaster; but before he lay down to die, much had been achieved, and with the encouragement that more could be accomplished in the future. The life of Las Casas is yet to be written. Those who have essayed it so far have only furnished a few facts, mixed with many errors. They have not attempted to combine the materials into general principles, and to analyze the incentives of those who were his enemies, or who were his friends, and thus reduce the conduct of all into a general consistency. Sympathizing with him in his exertions, they conclude that those who opposed him were all bad men, and those who encouraged him were all good men. But that is not the temper in which biography and history ought to be written. Facts or events are only one part of the work; the causes which preceded or influenced them should be investigated. Nothing should be left to ignorant conjecture, to idle inference or gratuitous suspicion. All the surroundings must be explained. In writing his biography some insight into the learning of that period and into the state of science at the time should be gained, especially in the departments of history, of moral philosophy, of the civil law, of the canon law, and international jurisprudence. Not even the lighter literature, including the popular poetry, the drama, and romances, can with safety escape observation. Above all, being at the era of the revival of learning, along with the first improvements in the art of printing, the changes made in modern languages are to be noted. In these transformations, the significance of many words and phrases was often doubtful. Sometimes they had to be taken according to their old meaning; sometimes again in the new. When astrology was banished, its theory was discarded; but at least two thirds of its terms were retained: when alchemy suffered the same fate, its vocabulary, as well as its crucibles, retorts, and alembics, were transferred to the chemical laboratory: when the practice of medicine was relinquished, physicians took possession of its expressions for comments, and wrote out their prescriptions in many of its hieroglyphics. These mutations were progressing when Columbus was sailing due west in search of a route to the east. Whether words were to be interpreted according to science, or according to suppositions which had prevailed before science, was often a difficult question to solve.

Illustrations would indicate how far research must go to understand the times and transitions taking place. It is needless to add, that nothing of the kind has been noted; nor, from appearances, will it ever be thought of. His writings have been glanced at to elucidate some point controverted, and then hastily thrown aside. What was learned, moreover, was in a confused mass of facts and dates, which were difficult to comprehend, and more difficult to reduce to a consistent form. The consequence has been that, instead of a knowledge of the learning and science at the period when he lived, to enlarge the circle of their literary reputations, they have embarrassed some historical subjects, and well will it be for them if they have not endangered their laurels. It would seem that many who have treated of Las Casas, or even touched upon his character, have fallen into some mistake, error, or curious blunder. Nor is their number confined to writers of an inferior order; it embraces some names renowned in Europe and America for justly merited historical excellence. They learned a few facts; they guessed the rest; and their guessing, like all loose conjectures in general, leads to false conclusions, with the consequent danger therefrom.

Las Casas commenced his History of the Indies in 1527. when he was in his fifty-third year; he concluded it in 1559, when he was in his eighty-fifth. He had in his possession some valuable documents obtained from Columbus; but beyond these he relied for the most part on his own knowledge of events, along with accredited rumors and reports in circulation. In his will he directs that the Historia shall not be made public for forty years after his decease. But reasons exist for the belief that it was read by Philip the Second, in the Escorial; and it is certain Antonio de Herrera availed himself of its information before the year 1600, when he completed his Description of the Indies of the West. The Historia by Las Casas still remains in manuscript in the Royal Academy of Madrid. Herrera, being the chief royal chronicler of the Indies, and chronicler for Castile, was ordered by the supreme council of the Indies to prepare his Description. It is presented in the form of annals, where events are recorded in the year in which they transpired. Consequently the breaks are incessant in the regular sequence, to conform to chronological arrangement. But historical effect was not designed; historical accuracy in the statement of facts being all that was demanded.

To this end, Herrera consulted every book, in print or in manuscript, known to him, and had access to every official document in the archives of Simancas and Seville, to insure accuracy and verify every assertion. He does not often explain the policy or intentions of the government; because statecraft, in those days, enjoined the silence of Italian diplomacy and practised the secrecy of the Venetian Council of Ten. The royal purpose in what was done or ordered, was above the sphere of the annalist; the introduction of personal or private biography was below it. He took for his model and guide, through the intricate maze of voyages, discoveries, and adventures, the Historia of Las Casas. He adopted that part only, however, which his duty required; he rejected that which was uncertain, untrue, or purely of personal interest. In rejecting, he did not discredit Las Casas, believing him to be of undoubted veracity, and in general very accurate. But Las Casas had unavoidably fallen into errors, from defect of memory, with advancing years, and from misinformation, or from facts misunderstood by the manner in which they reached him. That Herrera should improve upon him or defer to his accuracy as a historian is not singular, and expresses a high appreciation of his excellence. Nor can it be surprising, when called upon to pronounce, in his Description, between the statements of Las Casas and his enemies, Oviedo and Gomara, he should decide that Las Casas had good cause for much feeling against them. When the voluminous work of Herrera was printed, it was found to be a masterly production; nor has its authority been seriously questioned since. At the present day it stands as imputing perfect verity. It ranks with the Annual Register and National Almanac; it is of the same class of publications, but far more extensive in its design.

The imperfections of Las Casas in his Historia and those portions not quoted by Herrera are the parts which first claim attention. In understanding his peculiar position toward those with whom he was thrown in contact, his inferences of the motives by which they were actuated cannot be implicitly relied on. He did not comprehend fully their situation; he could not account for their conduct, because explanations were not made which at a flash would have revealed the difficulties. In the absence of those he could not refrain from ascribing bad motives to some officials, such as Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos. Others he honored, because they were disinterested, pure, virtuous personages, with their sensibilities excited at the wrongs done to the aborigines, and who sympathized with him in his praiseworthy enterprise. Such, in his opinion, were Cesneros, Cardinal Ximenes, and Adrian, Cardinal de Tortosa. These prelates were in turn prime ministers, but their mode of receiving Las Casas was different. Ximenes was cold and austere in general, with his thoughts absorbed in affairs of state. To Las Casas his deportment was not reserved; he was genial in his reception, and could read his traits at a glance; his feelings, too, were all on the same side, and it happened the interests of the crown were in accordance with his feelings. The cardinal, therefore, received him with unusual cordiality, and with much consideration; he listened to the facts communicated, to think them over, and to act upon them. He was thankful and considerate to Las Casas for the valuable information imparted, and sometimes relieved his poverty from his private purse. When the cardinal had learned all that Las Casas could tell about the condition of the Indies, he was graciously and quietly bowed out. For Ximenes had not the time nor inclination to hear more, which was sure to follow, if he could, with any decency, avoid the infliction.

Cardinal Adrian, subsequently Pope Adrian, was of a mild, quiet, disposition. He gave to Las Casas longer interviews, because he had more to learn, having recently come to Spain for the first time, from the Low Countries. Adrian therefore was more gracious still; but when Las Casas, in his nervous excitability, discoursed upon the never-ending theme of the injustice of Indian slavery, its sinfulness, its impolicy, its danger to the souls of persons in high places who tolerated it, and began on the Scriptures, the fathers, the decretals, the bulls, and the canon law, and the civil law, and the moral law, with interminable citations and iterations, the patience of even the meekest of cardinals would sometimes give way. For both Adrian and Cesneros understood these matters better than he did; and while assenting to the truth of what was uttered, they were not inclined to hear it so often and at such length repeated.

Ximenes, when not wishing to see him, time being too precious, turned him over to some dean or bishop; but Adrian, when desirous of more explanations, sent some friend among the Flemish counties to search for Las Casas, to converse with him, in order to acquire a thorough knowledge of the Indies, and of his opinions and plans. One day he met Señor De Bure by appointment, who felt an interest in the Indies. Las Casas was delighted to find the Flemish gentleman felt for the poor Indians, and forthwith his hopes rose that the government would do something. De Bure, in his eyes, was the very best of human beings. De Bure would listen to all that could be said, and soon took him to his uncle, De Laxao, who was the young sovereign's chamberlain, with inexpressible influence. De Bure was a buffer for Adrian, nothing more, to keep off Las Casas from that cardinal when he did not want to see him, but wished to be kept duly advised on Indian topics.

Fonseca was of a different mould; he was a man of business, rude, abrupt, with little delicacy in his manners to suppliants. He had a better acquaintance with the Indies; knew all about the condition of the natives; and if he had any sympathy for Las Casas, he did not permit it to be seen, nor for one moment would he countenance his proposals or listen to his plans. He deemed them as visionary as he had once viewed the scheme of Columbus to discover a new continent. He now was equally sure Las Casas could not civilize that continent when it was discovered. Consequently Las Casas loved Ximenes and Adrian, and heartily despised the Bishop of Burgos. Every school-boy who ever read of Columbus or Cortez has learned what a very bad man was Fonseca, and all modern authors know what was in their school-books; but they know nothing more. Every life of Columbus, of Cortez, of Las Casas is written in the same vein. The Bishop of Burgos is abused in all of them. He treated the discoverer of America shamefully; he insulted the Protector of the Indians; he persecuted the conqueror of Mexico. These illustrious men denounced him, and their biographers are in sworn biographical fealty bound to denounce him also. Their heroes are never wrong; for what hero in biography or romance can ever be wrong? In the very nature of such compositions it is an utter impossibility. Fonseca was never in the right; for what opponent of their idols could have any reason or justice on his side?

Now, the best of reasons may be found for his policy to Columbus and Las Casas. They both wanted funds from the treasury when he was minister, and when no funds could be spared; for the nation was insolvent—a secret well known to him, but which it was all-important should not be known to the public. He would not give a ducat for any exploring voyage or prospective discovery, or for any expenses after a discovery was made. When Isabella begged and implored the cold minister to yield to her importunities for Columbus, he positively refused; nor could any entreaties induce him to relent. The queen, in consequence, had to pawn her jewels to equip the armada fitting out at Palos. Fonseca was not disgraced for his obstinacy; and although nothing of a courtier, he was too useful to be removed. Las Casas was served in the same way when Charles was anxious to aid him with funds. Fonseca was again as surly, and when at last the sovereign determined in council that, come what might, Las Casas should have aid, Fonseca washed his hands of the business, and soon after met him with a smile. This unexpected amiability Las Casas describes as evincing "some nobleness of nature." How many meritorious subjects, with honest claims on the treasury, were disappointed of a pittance thereby, is not considered. Knights who had spent their estates in prosecuting the wars against the Moors, who had grown old and poor in the royal service, who had fought for Christendom at Alhama, conquered at Malaga, and contributed to the siege and capture of Cordova, may have turned away heart-sick, in want of a maravedi, and only diminished the importunate, unsuccessful crowd besieging the doors of ministers, to swell the number of daily beggars at the hatch of some convent. In the novel of Gil Bias a picture is presented of the neglect shown to meritorious subjects, whose necessities are no less imperative than their deeds were commendable. Captain Chinchilla is a sample of thousands. He had lost an eye at Naples, an arm in Lombardy, and a leg in the Low Countries; but his sovereign had not a ducat to spare. In such condition of the finances, a minister required a heart of stone to turn away from starving appeals for a bare pittance or the smallest pension. Fonseca could not be just; how much less could he be generous? A man who would endure this for the crown deserved much of the royal favor. For this was Fonseca invaluable; his nerve to save every real to the state was a quality much wanted.

But Hernando Cortez never besought the royal bounty; why, then, should Fonseca persecute him? It is said he exhibited uniform malignity against all great men; he persecuted Cortez. To this last instance a reason can be interposed. For some cause Fonseca took part in the private quarrel between him and Velasquez, the Governor of Cuba. What was the minister's motive is merely conjecture; but if true, it is not worthy of consideration. Velasquez and Cortez were both villains; and a controversy between them arose about the division of the Mexican spoils. The governor furnished the funds for that expedition, and fitted out the ships on joint account. He complained that Cortez made no return of the profits, Fonseca took the side of Velasquez and aided him in his suit. It was difficult to determine who had the law in his favor; but the man who would cheat his patron and partner, as Cortez certainly did, who would torture to death an innocent prisoner and that prisoner a dethroned monarch, as Cortez in cold blood put Guatomotz to the torture, is not only a contemptible knave, but a hideous monster in human form.

Velasquez was another of the same breed; and if his infamy was less, the opportunity for the display of his propensities was wanting; his field was not so magnificent; but he cultivated to the utmost extent the smaller space which Cuba presented. Bad faith toward each other was the common practice among colonial chiefs. Velasquez owed his appointment to the judges of the Audiencia of Hispaniola, who fitted him out to do business for both in the same way that he in turn had commissioned and supplied Cortez, and as Cortez again nominated certain confidential friends to govern Mexico when he undertook his unfortunate expedition to Honduras. Of course these friends cheated Cortez, as he had cheated Governor Velasquez, and as the governor had cheated the judges of the Audiencia, and as the judges were perpetually defrauding their sovereign. Not one spark of honor or honesty was exhibited by any of them. They were rapacious, reckless, restrained by no law or teaching or sense of morality; while the temptation before their eyes was too splendid and overpowering to resist. The breach of a solemn promise was cheap as a dicer's oath; it was not even a venal offence; the torture of the Indians was not a crime; the burning alive at a slow fire of the royal Aztec was at best only an indiscretion. Thousands, including girls and boys, had been subjected to the same treatment, and for the same purpose, to wring the last ounce of gold-dust from the unhappy creatures.

The proceedings of Governor Velasquez, in Cuba, were not unlike the conduct of Cortez in Mexico. The governor enslaved, he tortured, he destroyed; and so did every cavalier who came in contact with the natives. The only gentlemen in the Antilles were the buccaneers, the British, Dutch, and French pirates. They, to be sure, in search of booty, cut the throats of the Spaniards whom they captured; but they were of too much principle to conceal the plunder from their companions or to divide unfairly. But the Castilians did not stop with cutting throats of innocent Indians; they despoiled each other. They had not the proverbial honor found among thieves. In such a delightful society, moral rectitude was not one of the cardinal virtues; and if Fonseca inclined to Velasquez while popular opinion is with Cortez, the discrepancy may be ascribed to the fact that popular opinion will in such cases decide in favor of him whose baseness is the greater, the more magnificent and successful. Las Casas detested Cortez, and preferred the governor; but he complains of the unjust policy of Ferdinand to Columbus. It is probable Las Casas is mistaken again; he knew nothing of cabinet secrets. The character of the great navigator deservedly stands high, not only for the splendor of his discoveries, but for the purity of his life. His fame cannot be assailed with any truth or propriety; while on the other hand, history does not accord much credit to Ferdinand for his public or private worth. Yet it is impossible, in considering all the circumstances, to avoid the conclusion that the king was right, and had at least equity to sustain him, or rather to justify his counsellors, for it was a matter of state. It is true, the crown of Castile had entered into a formal contract with Columbus to confer upon him a high command over all the countries he should discover. The king now refused to make good this stipulation; he broke the contract, and proposed compensation by estates conferred in Castile. Columbus held the crown to the bond and refused all compromise. He had set his heart on becoming the man of greatest wealth in the world and to bestow it all to Christendom in a cruza for the recovery of the holy places from the infidel. A more sublime purpose could not be conceived; for at the time, Constantinople was captured, the islands for the most part in the Levant overrun, Italy in danger, a foothold gained in Sicily and Sardinia, France hastily sending troops to the frontiers of Austria, Hungary invaded, the Knights Templars of St. John far in advance at Rhodes under fire, and prayers daily offered up by the people in their churches at Amsterdam, imploring the Almighty to avert the Saracen from their gates; the crowning victory for the Christians was not gained for a half-century later at the Gulf of Lepanto.

This brilliant scheme of Columbus to roll back the tide of war, engrossed his leisure hours. For its accomplishment, he hoped to obtain riches from the new world; and when made governor of Hispaniola, was avaricious to amass a stupendous fortune. Among other measures he sent three hundred natives to Seville, to be sold as slaves. Queen Isabella, hearing of it, ordered that they be sent back, declaring no one had a right to enslave her vassals. Although incensed, she did not reprimand Columbus. He had enough of difficulties to contend with in his administration, without the further burden of her displeasure; for it was soon found out he evinced an incapacity to govern men in civil society. Successful he might be in ruling sailors on the forecastle; but that had not taught him how to govern men on shore. He exacted implicit obedience; he pursued his own plans without consultation; he compelled cavaliers to assist in manual labor. Worse than all, he was a foreigner, and it ended in a revolt with open war. A royal commissioner was sent out to institute an investigation, which terminated in Columbus being sent to Seville in chains. Isabella, at this indignity offered to her favorite admiral, ordered the irons to be removed, but would not consent, withal, to reinstate him in authority. After her death, he renewed his application, without a better result; the king refused to comply with the words of the royal contract. The promise had been made, but it was made for the state—for the public benefit—and the opinion of lawyers was, that it could be broken if it were for the common good not to carry out its provisions. A proper equivalent could be awarded for the damage done to the admiral. This was the theory of rights then; it is still the theory and practice of all governments at the present time. But Columbus refused every offer in the nature of a recompense, which would have left him rich, and placed him on a level with the highest grandees in the realm. He nursed his wrongs in silence, languished in comparative poverty, and died of a broken heart.

Las Casas never forgot this treatment of the great admiral, his warm personal friend; he distrusted princes ever after. He fell into the error common to most men soliciting court favor, that whatever was done to promote his wishes was done from personal considerations to him, through his individual exertions and influence, and not out of any regard for the welfare of the Indians. On the contrary, the welfare of the Indians was all that recommended him to the attention of the cardinals, or to royal notice, and invested him with importance. The policy of the crown was to save the aborigines from destruction. It might be a selfish policy, but it surely was, at the same time, enlightened and correct in every point of view. But every colonial official, every special agent, every Spaniard was thwarting the governmental plan, to promote their own interests and their private emolument. The proceeds of the plantations, of the mines, of the pearl fisheries, were in great demand at fabulous values, while the labor of the Indians enslaved was cheap and abundant; therefore, they were made slaves in the very face of the royal prohibition.

It is true these slaves sickened and died within a short period, but plenty more were forthcoming at a low rate; and thus the desolation went on. The crown had resolved to check the atrocity; but how could it be accomplished? The clergy were not implicated in the guilt, but they were incapable of assisting at first, or advising. The most of them, moreover, believed at one time that the natives were not human. The Dominicans, who arrived out about 1510, thought otherwise; and they, in turn, under the guidance of Las Casas, infused their opinion into the other brethren. His discussion before the young emperor with Quevedo, Bishop of Darien, was to settle their status; for Quevedo contended they were not intellectual beings. Many doubts prevailed also among the clergy, and it was the universal belief of the laity, according to Remisal, until, in 1537, Paul III. issued his famous bull declaring they were human and free, capable of instruction and salvation. The crown had great difficulties in the matter, and the ministers were much perplexed in learning what to do; but the imperial troubles were not disclosed to Las Casas, for the troubles were diplomatic secrets which to none could be divulged. Their confidence in his veracity, sincerity, and disinterestedness, was unbounded; he was the only one they could trust for a correct account. He was successively created Protector of the Indians, chaplain to the emperor, and Bishop of Chiapa. While the sovereigns appreciated him, esteemed him, heard every word he had to say bearing upon the subject, he mixed it up so often with so many extraneous remarks, observations, and quotations, that they must now and then have considered him an intolerable bore. With this comprehension of the principles maintained by the Castilian cabinet, a clue is discovered to guide through the mazes and intricacies of Indian politics. Emergencies sometimes compelled deviations or exceptions for the moment; but when the necessity passed away, the policy was immediately restored.

It is now time to turn to the new work of Mr. Arthur Helps. To those who have read a page about Las Casas, this book can excite only feelings of disappointment and regret. The public expected some improvement at least on preceding biographies, which was certainly a very moderate expectation; but it has not been gratified. The volume is written with the design to expatiate on the great virtues of the bishop, to eulogize his actions, to excuse his errors, to defend his fame. But the memory of Las Casas needs no aid of this kind in panegyric or palliation. His deeds have passed into history, and by its calm, enlightened, disinterested verdict he must stand or fall. So far he has not been favored with a dispassionate hearing, nor by any means with an enlightened public. A prejudice has prevailed against him, from one cause among his countrymen, from another source abroad; and Mr. Helps, without intending to do him harm, would strengthen the prevailing impression abroad by his publication, if it were generally read, but which is doubtful. On the second page, in stating "the character of Las Casas," he writes:

"The utmost that friends or enemies, I imagine, could with the slightest truth allege against him was an over-fervent temperament. If we had to arrange the faculties of great men, we should generally, according to our easy-working fancies, combine two characters to make our men of. And in this case we should not be sorry, if it might have been so, to have had a little of the wary nature of such a man as King Ferdinand the Second intermixed with the nobler elements of Las Casas. Considering, however, what great things Las Casas strove after and how much he accomplished, it is ungracious to dwell more than is needful upon any defect or superfluity of his character. If it can be proved he was on any occasion too impetuous in word or deed, it was in a cause that might have driven any man charged with it beyond all bounds of prudence in the expression of his indignation."

It will be perceived, on perusal that, wherever the bishop has been charged with any fault, imperfection, failure, or inconsistency, this author readily admits it, and then proceeds to offer extenuating circumstances, or to petition for mercy for his hero, on the plea that he had good intentions or had done important services. When, again, the author has some bright spot to dwell upon in his career, it is presented in a questionable shape, which deprives it of all lustre, leaving the suspicion on the mind of readers that the bishop is a much overrated man. Mr. Helps furnishes no new facts, he explains none that are old, he states very few correctly. About dates the author is most commonly in error when given; but for the most part he does not deign to notice them, which in this case is a blessing; for he seems as indifferent to their importance as if he were writing a novel or a love-letter. In the composition, he has had recourse to two works only—the History of the Indies, by Las Casas himself, and the History of Guatemala and Chiapa, by Remesal.

The Historia, by the bishop, is not the most important of his many productions, nor are the selections from Remesal made with much discrimination. The Conversion of the Indians in Verapaz, or the Land of War, is interesting; but Mr. Helps in his account does not leave much of its glory to Las Casas, while Las Casas was for ever boasting, with truth, of that achievement as his first success, and claiming it justly as peculiarly his own. In the same History of Guatemala it is narrated how Las Casas refused to visit the viceroy in Mexico, because he had ordered the hand of a priest to be cut off at Antequera. Mr. Helps translates it, the priest's head at Antequera; probably he does not know that Antequera is the ancient Spanish name for the modern city of Oaxaca.

With this slender stock of material the book was written; and in consequence, whenever a doubt arose about a fact, or a further reason was required for some elucidation, it will be seen, on every page, that writing history was made easy by guessing, or moral observations, of which some specimens are selected:

"I do not know what transaction he alludes to."
"I hardly see him without prophetic vision."
"It moves our pity to think."
"Probably being somewhat tired."
"Perhaps not wishing to alarm."
"I think with Las Casas."
"There is no doubt."
"I have scarcely a doubt."
"If the writer of this narrative may be permitted to fancy himself."
"I conceive for a single day."
"I fancy him sitting."
"It may be doubted, however."
"As it appears to me."
"I suspect the wisest amongst us would."
"I cannot but attribute."
"We may very well imagine."
"A young man, as I conjecture."
"Probably on that account."
"To me it seems."
"Always I imagine."
"We must not suppose."
"And so I think."

And so will every reader think. Mr. Arthur Helps has essayed to write history before. The Spanish Conquest in America stands to his literary credit. But he has a way peculiar to himself in the gestation and parturition of his historical offspring. He explains, in the preface to the third volume of his Spanish Conquest, his obstetrical mode of doing this thing. It is thus accounted for:

"In issuing this third volume, I take this opportunity of making a statement, which perhaps it would have been well to have made before.

"The reader will observe that there is scarcely any allusion in this work to the kindred works of modern writers on the same subject. This is not from any want of respect for the able historians who have written upon the discovery or the conquest of America. I felt, however, from the first, that my object in investigating this portion of history was different from theirs, and I wished to keep my mind clear from the influence which these eminent persons might have exercised upon it. … Moreover, while admitting fully the advantages to be derived from the study of these modern writers, I thought it was better upon the whole to have a work composed from independent sources, which would convey the impression that the original documents had made upon the author's mind."

With this explanation, nothing more remains to observe. If he has founded a school in this method, or if his original plan upon which to write history will die out with him, is yet to be seen. The Spanish Conquest, by Mr. Arthur Helps, is in thick, solid, heavy form, and in volumes no less than four. Insatiate Arthur! would not one suffice? His moral reflections and his axioms have one merit, if the number of ages in which they have been in common use can make them venerable. From the Pyramids centuries may look down upon some of them.

In the Life of Las Casas, the author in the preface informs the world that—

"There are few men to whom, up to the present time, the words which Shakespeare makes Mark Antony say of Caesar, would more apply than to Las Casas:

'The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.'

At one inauspicious moment of his life he advised a course which has ever since been the one blot upon his well-earned fame, and too often has this advice been the only thing, which, when the name of Las Casas has been mentioned, has occurred to men's minds respecting him. He certainly did advise that negroes should be brought to the New World. I think, however, I have amply shown in the Spanish Conquest, he was not the first to give this advice."

This is the way Mr. Helps enters the lists to be his champion. We do not know where the evils of Las Casas live on—when the ossification of the good with his bones supervened. Instead of quoting Shakespeare, a few lines written by the great British statesman, George Canning, for the Anti-Jacobin, in his ode to the "New Morality." would be more applicable to Mr. Helps himself:

"Give me th' avowed, erect, the manly foe,
Bold I can meet, perchance avert his blow;
But of all plagues, good heavens! thy wrath can send,
Save, save, oh! save me from the candid friend."

The memory of Las Casas has suffered greatly from many of those unthinking, unsearching plagues, who are ever ready to confess what "it is due to candor to state," etc. A dozen at least might be counted of names high in the roll of literature: Llorente, Washington Irving, Mr. Prescott, are among the number. The time has come to explode this bubble about his want of fixed principles. All are pleased to admit he was a good man, leading a virtuous life, with a noble purpose in view; but that he was inconsistent in recommending negro slavery, while advocating the emancipation of the Indians. Now, if one be in his right mind, and yet inconsistent in opinions or conduct, he cannot be virtuous in principle or practice. The expressions are incongruous. How can he be accounted virtuous, if at times he is vicious? How can he be received as good, when he has advised what is bad? Rectitude is wanting. In public life an inconsistent man is dangerous; because he destroys order and promotes disorder; he creates distrust in the absence of integrity in purpose. In private life no dependence can be reposed in him; he is not respected, and if the infirmity be great, his friends send him to an asylum for the insane.

Navarete thus states the charge against Las Casas:

"It is this expedient of Las Casas which has drawn down severe censure upon his memory. He has been charged with gross inconsistency, and even with having originated the inhuman traffic in the new world. This last is a grievous charge; but historical facts and dates remove the original sin from his door, and prove that the practice existed in the colonies, and was authorized by royal decree long before he took part in the question." [Footnote 78]

[Footnote 78: Navarete, Viages and Descubriamentos. Tom. iii. p. 418.]

This charge was first made against the bishop by Dr. Robertson, in his History of America, in 1777. The doctor therein contrasts him with Cardinal Ximenes, Prime Minister of Spain, observing:

"Cardinal Ximenes, when solicited to encourage this commerce, peremptorily rejected the proposition, because he perceived the iniquity of reducing one race of men to slavery, while he was consulting about the means of restoring liberty to another. (Herrera Dec. ii. lib. ii. cap. 8.) But Las Casas, from the inconsistency natural to men who hurry with headlong impetuosity toward a favorite point, was incapable of making the distinction." (Herrera Dec. lib. ii. cap. 20.)

If Ximenes had been living when this exalted morality was accorded to him, his astonishment would have been great; he claimed no morality of that kind.

In turning to Herrera, at the eighth chapter, referred to by Dr. Robertson, it will be found the doctor has drawn upon his imagination for the paragraph on Ximenes. The cardinal was not thinking about morality, but about money. Herrera states it thus:

"At the same time it was ordered that negro slaves should not pass to the Indies; which order was understood at once; for, as they went out, in the scarcity of Indians, and as it was known that one negro did the work of four, whereby a great demand had arisen for them, it appeared to the Cardinal Ximenes, that he might place some tax on their exportation, from whence would result a benefit to the treasury."

But Herrera, in the twentieth chapter, does, with truth, connect Las Casas with the recommending of negro slaves. Every line of this passage must be carefully noted, in order to understand what follows. It is in these words:

"The licentiate Bartoleme de Las Casas … turned to another expedient, advocating that the Castilians, living in the Indies, might import negroes; for with them on the plantations and in the mines, the Indians would be much alleviated; and that it be advised to carry out a large number of workmen, with certain privileges accorded to them. Adrian, Cardinal of Tortosa, heard these suggestions with much pleasure. … And in order to know better the number of slaves required for the four islands, Hispaniola, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica, an opinion was asked from the Royal House of Trade at Seville, and they responding four thousand, persons were not wanting, who, to gain favor, informed the Governor de la Bresa, a Flemish gentleman of the council of the king, and his major-domo. De Bresa begged the monopoly of it; the king granted it, and De Bresa sold it to the Genoese for 25,000 ducats, on condition that the king would not bestow another monopoly for eight years. The grant was very injurious to the settlers of these islands, and for the Indians, for whose alleviation it had been ordered. Because when the traffic was free, as has been stated, every Castilian carried out slaves. But as the Genoese sold the privilege for each one for a large sum, few purchased, and thus this benefit ceased."

Searches were made in Herrera to prove that the traffic did not commence with Las Casas' advice. This fact was easily established; but it did not meet the issue. The question was, did Las Casas, in 1517, recommend the importation of negroes? and the fact was made out. Several points were rendered clear, and made so from the bishop's own History of the Indies; that he recommended the measure hastily; that it was an unfortunate recommendation; that his remorse was great for it; that he hoped God would forgive him, for he had done it in ignorance. Those who never examined further, infer that the criminality of the slave-trade was deemed as sinful at that time in the first half of the sixteenth as it is now in the last half of the nineteenth century. Hence the mistakes among modern historians.

When the investigation would appear to be concluded, and Las Casas condemned out of his own writings, the difficulty in the case in reality only commences. The rubbish surrounding it is removed; nothing more. What did Las Casas admit? Surely not the charge that he was inconsistent; for two centuries elapsed before the charge was made; but he accuses himself for having given the advice hastily; that it eventuated unfortunately, (but not to him;) that he gave it ignorantly; that he hoped to be forgiven. To present the case in its opposite aspect: if the advice had proved beneficial instead of injurious to the Indians, he would not have suffered remorse. He had given the advice without reflecting, without examination, consequently in ignorance; for if he had reflected for one moment, he would have foreseen what consequences would follow, and which proved disastrous to the natives.

But, while presented in this light, it is somewhat weakened by the accompanying words of Las Casas. Mr. Ticknor, in his excellent History of Spanish Literature, explains the remorse from another view. He concludes that the bishop, in giving the advice, was ignorant of the fact that the African negroes were captured in unjust war; and when he learns they were made slaves, as the Indians were enslaved, his soul was filled with horror for the sin he had committed in recommending the importation. Some of the words of Las Casas will bear out this hypothesis—on the first impression it would appear conclusive; but, unfortunately, other expressions must be explained, so as to give effect to every line. Besides this, why should the bishop feel remorse for what was done ignorantly, when engaged in the holy work to promote the salvation of souls? Las Casas was too well versed in casuistry to deem himself criminal under these circumstances. Moreover, the bishop, when in the exercise of his sacred duties in his diocese of Chiapa, wrote out a rescript for his clergy, dated in November, 1546, wherein he charges them not to confess Christians holding Indian slaves, but does not include negro slaves. This, to be sure, might have been an oversight, were it not for a few lines written further down, where he cautions his clergy to guard well the holy sacrament of marriage as well among the negroes as the Indians. The document will be found in full in Remesal. From this it appears Las Casas, thirty years later, had not discovered that negroes were on the same footing with the Indians, being then seventy-two years old.

In his Historia, one hundred and first chapter, he writes of himself:

"This advice—that license be given to bring negro slaves to these countries—the Clerigo Casas first gave, not understanding the injustice with which the Portuguese take them and enslave them, which, from what happened from it, he would not have given for all he had in the world; for he always held it unjust and tyrannical making them slaves; for the same right as in them as in the Indians."

The translation of Mr. Helps is not followed; because he does not translate some of the words at all; and, in one instance, gives to a verb a wrong expression, inconsistent with the sentence and with a subsequent paragraph. The line, "After he had apprehended the nature of the thing," is no more to be found in the passage than in the Psalms. In the one hundred and twenty-eighth chapter of the Historia, Las Casas again refers to the subject, and states why, on the representation of the planters that they would free their Indians if permission were given to them to import negroes, he consented to recommend the measure to the crown. He next alludes to the bad consequences flowing from the monopoly, and concludes thus:

"Of this advice, which the clerigo gave, not a little did he afterward repent, judging himself guilty from his haste, (inadvertenti;) and because he saw, as it turned out to be, as unjust, the capture of the negroes as of the Indians. There was no other remedy than what he advised—to bring negroes in order to free the Indians, although he might suppose they were just captures, although he was not certain that his ignorance and good intention would excuse him in the divine wisdom."

It appears from the passage in Herrera, quoted above, that the advice was bad; for a monoply of the traffic in negroes was granted to De Bresa, who sold his speculation to the Genoese, and they raised the price so high that the planters could not purchase Africans nor import Christian-born negroes from Spain as formerly. In consequence, the trade in Indian slaves, who were cheaper, increased, to the chagrin of Las Casas for his inconsiderate suggestion. His heedless conduct, in his own eyes, at last appeared sinful. In some part of it he had displeased God; for the Deity permitted the Indian servitude to go on, which, in the mind of Las Casas, he would not have permitted had not he incurred, in some way, the divine displeasure. Was it his precipitancy of action in the measure? was it advising the importation of Africans, some of whom might have been captured in an unjust war, which incensed the Deity? Las Casas could not determine, and hence his confusion of mind and forgetfulness of the incidents in writing the Historia. Whatever view, however, may be taken of it, or which preferred, it is certain that, under no aspect, can the charge of inconsistency made by Dr. Robertson, and stated by Navarete, be sustained.

Washington Irving's note on Las Casas, in the appendix to his Columbus, evinces much commendable research, and a collection of all the facts he could find. But unfortunately, he had not studied the career of the bishop; he did not pursue his examination deep enough; he also overlooked some evidence before his eyes in Herrera. When Mr. Irving had finished his search and noted the evidence, he stated confusedly what he had collected, without discriminating between inferences and facts; sometimes treating facts as inferences or excuses in the biographies of Ximenes; sometimes treating the inferences in Robertson and Quintana as facts. He entered upon the examination impressed with the conviction that Las Casas had been inconsistent; that the moral conscience of that age was against slavery as much as it is now. He comes to no conclusion, and leaves the charge against the bishop in the same condition he approached it.

Mr. Prescott, in his excellent History of the Conquest of Mexico, in a note on Las Casas, copies only from Quintana, and thereby copies also, many of the mistakes of that celebrated Spanish author. The singular spectacle, therefore, among the curiosities of literature is presented in Mr. Prescott's Conquest, a work of sterling value, for its accuracy resting always upon respectable authorities, wherein a note is seen abounding in errors. Mr. Prescott is also a believer in the inconsistency of the bishop, and that the moral sense at that time was against slavery.

Mr. Ticknor, too, in his History of Spanish Literature, a history renowned and properly admired everywhere, with all his respect for the bishop, is not without his little literary imperfections. It is evident he is not familiar with the events, and their surroundings in the life of Las Casas. He places the famous controversy of the bishop with Sepulveda in 1519. But in that year was the well-known debate of Las Casas with Quevedo, the Bishop of Darien, in the presence of the youthful sovereign. Sepulveda was then a young man of twenty-six years. But Mr. Ticknor wanders in good company, one of the most eminent of England, the celebrated Sir James Mackintosh, who, in his Progress of Ethical Philosophy, states Sepulveda met Las Casas in argument in 1542. That, however, was the year of the famous assembly convoked by imperial order, at Barcelona and Molino del Rey, to take into consideration the bishop's Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Both of these able historians are wrong about the date of the Sepulveda discussion: even Mr. Helps knows better; it was in 1550. Mr. Ticknor further reports that the Brief Account was written for the emperor and dedicated to the prince, afterward Philip the Second. It would have been more proper to write that the Brief Account was written for the emperor, and ten years after printed and dedicated to the prince, then in England, the Prince Consort with Queen Mary.

The state of public opinion, in regard to slavery at that period, requires a few words in explanation in order to leave no uncertainty in the law, or stain on the crown, on the church, or civilization. It differed much from the present, because the condition of society was in many respects not analogous. Slavery was not then considered immoral; but was actually, in its practice, indicative of progress, in ameliorating the calamities of war and the fate of captives by land and sea. Every war undertaken by a civilized nation, and declared in the usual forms, with the solemn religious ceremonies, was held to be a just war. It was an appeal to the God of armies, as an umpire or judge; it was the ordeal by battle. When a victory was won, it was held by the victors a divine decision in their favor; the vanquished were deemed criminals before high heaven; and as a punishment they were put to death. When the prisoners were too numerous for a general massacre, they were led captive to colonize some vacant territory, and to work for their masters. These victims did not feel grateful to their enemies for their clemency; but poured forth their thanks to Providence for his mercy. Their offspring continued in slavery; for the sins of the father were visited on the children to the third and fourth generations, for ever. Even in the course of time, when they intermixed in blood, language, and religion with the descendants of their conquerors, they were often held to servitude. This was the theory and the practice under it; but subject to many exceptions. Exchange of prisoners was sometimes effected; some were ransomed; some were released. At the date of the discovery of America, Spain had been at war with the Saracen for seven centuries; it was not only a just war, but a holy crusade. When captures were made on either side, slaughter ensued without compunction; but not invariably. Both armies and navies were acting on religious conviction; but both were better civilized, the infidel being deemed the more refined of the two. It is true, the old and young, the infirm and diseased, who were poor, were slain or pitched overboard; while the rich and the strong were held for slaves or for ransom. When a parent learned that his child or relation was spared, only enslaved, he felt the joy with which an American mother on the border hears the news that her little girl has not been scalped by the Camanches when captured.

In Europe, therefore, slavery was deemed a mitigation of the horrors of war: an evil inflicted by the hand of Providence, but a lesser evil. No one spoke or wrote against the institution; whoever had dared would have been considered not much better than a brute. Perhaps a few Moslem fanatics desired more Christian blood-letting; perhaps a few Christian fanatics wished a little more of the fluid from the arteries of Moors. Yet in no period of the world's history was it held just to retain slaves not captured in a just war. In Jerusalem, they were returned to the neighboring nations when acquired in private piratical forays. This was the Hebrew law. The law of Moses forbade man-stealing, mentioned in Isaiah, and repeated by Saint Paul in Timothy; but man-stealing meant no more than any other stealing of movable property.

In Athens, the same morality was recognized. Aristotle laid it down in his "Politics" that barbarians could not be held in servitude unless taken in a just war. Rome borrowed her international code from Greece, as she borrowed everything else intellectual. On the revival of learning in the west, the Roman civil law was introduced through the continent of Europe. The justice of war, the property acquired under it, the moral power to enslave, when, where, and in what cases, was elaborately taught at the universities. Its principles were as well understood in the canon law as in the civil law; teachers in ethical philosophy also expounded the doctrine which prevailed in every tribunal or judicature. They all agreed in their premises and maxims; they only differed in their application, as their minds were clear or obtuse.

The rules for the interpretation of laws were the same in the courts of civil or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The presumption of law was that, as slavery of the foreign infidel existed in Spain, every infidel of a foreign nation was a slave. If one claimed his freedom, the burden of proof lay upon him to prove he was free. When negroes from Africa were brought by Portuguese slave-traders to the Seville market, the presumption arose that these creatures were of that condition. If one of them could show that he was not a slave, that he was not captured in war, but stolen from his tribe, he was adjudged a free man. It had always been known that men were stolen and sold; but every slave claiming to be free had to prove it. The public did not inquire into the fact when they purchased; they did not send to Senegambia. It is well known that mule-stealing is as common in Kentucky as sheep-stealing in the State of New York. Yet no one in the city, purchasing either kind of animal in the open market, will hesitate to buy mules or mutton from a regular drover or butcher. Who could wait, when taking his seat at breakfast, until his conscience was appeased to find out first whether the veal cutlet before him was not cut from a stolen calf? No one, high or low, in Spain, had any misgiving in the traffic of slaves, either in importing them to Andalucia or in exporting them to Jamaica.

But the natives of the Western Indies stood on a different footing, and when their question was first presented by Queen Isabella to the universities of Valladolid and Salamanca for a just opinion, whether the Indians could be enslaved, the professors unanimously decided they could not. The doctors of theology, versed in the canon law, maintained the aborigines of the western hemisphere were conceded to the crown by the bull of Alexander VI. granting the sovereignty of America to the kingdom of Castile and Leon, and the inhabitants, as wards to civilize and make Christians in express terms to be found in the pontifical document; that the sovereign had accepted it on these conditions. To break the promise was to betray the trust. On the other hand, the civil jurists held the Indians were vassals of the crown acquired in peaceful discovery and not reduced by war. Therefore they were never captured, and consequently could never be enslaved.

The crown agreed with the lawyers on the question of title by which the Indies of the West were held. The crown also recognized the stipulations in the bull to civilize and christianize the Indians. Consequently, it was resolved that just war could not be undertaken against them; but the government placed over them should be a missionary government; with a political polity, at the same time, for colonists only, from Castile. Hence, the innumerable mission establishments in America and the comparatively insignificant civil institutions for the Europeans; hence, also, the double aspect of formation in the vice-royalty— the dual government under one head.

The royal officials sent out had no jurisdiction over the Indians, except the viceroy; the religious missionaries had no charge over the Spaniards. As the natives greatly outnumbered the Castilians, the institutions, in a short time, inclined more to the ecclesiastical than to the civil or political; and the religious element continues predominant to the present day. Presidents still govern in fact, although not in the same form as the old viceroys; and as the viceroys represented the king in temporal and spiritual matters, the republican presidents endeavor to imitate, in the plenitude of their power, both the sovereign and the pontiff.

Las Casas understood the law as laid down by the civil jurists, and as understood also by the theologians. Sometimes he defended the Indians under the civil code; sometimes under the canon law. In one way he appealed to his countrymen's sense of justice; in another, to their conscience. In general his arguments were based on the bull of Alexander, contending that the natives were placed in charge of the sovereigns by the head of the church for a religious purpose. Llorente considers this course the weaker side to take, because the pope has no prerogative to grant kingdoms, and principalities, and discoveries at pleasure; yet he excuses Las Casas, because this assumption of the pope's was generally recognized in that age. But the excellent biographer overlooks the words in the petition from Isabella to Alexander, desiring the sovereignty. A saving clause will be found in it, which intimates: "Distinguished lawyers are of opinion that the confirmation or donation from the pontificate is not requisite to hold possession justly of the new world." In that it will be perceived a reservation is inserted against the very power to grant that which it was requested to be granted.

The bishop was aware of this, but still preferred to appeal to the conscience of the conquerors and colonists; to portray the wickedness in enslaving, where their religious convictions might be touched, rather than rely upon the law of the case where every secular law was continually broken, and where even divine law was not much better respected. His policy was correct; its good effects ultimately were manifest, and at last eminently successful.

At this time died Hernando Cortez, the conqueror and scourge of Mexico. When his will was opened, one item directed, as Mr. Prescott translates:

"It has long been a question whether one can conscientiously hold property in Indian slaves. Since this point has not yet been determined, I enjoin it on my son Martin and his heirs, that they spare no pains to come to an exact knowledge of the truth, as a matter which deeply touches the conscience of each of them no less than mine.'

The historian, in a note on the same page, gives this extract in the original, where it reads differently, thus:

"Item, concerning the native slaves in New Spain, aforesaid; those of war as well as of purchase, there have been, and are many doubts," etc.

The term, "by purchase," refers to those natives who were slaves before the arrival of the Spaniards, and sold to him. Mr. Prescott does not perceive the point for which Las Casas was contending, and which touched the conqueror on his death-bed with all his mighty crimes fresh on his soul at the last moment, whether Indians, although taken in war, could be enslaved. On the next page Mr. Prescott remarks: "Las Casas and the Dominicans of the former age, the abolitionists of their day, thundered out their uncompromising invectives against the system, on the broad ground of natural equity and the rights of man." This is a mistake; Las Casas and other Dominicans always held up the bull of Alexander VI., as our abolitionists pointed to the National Declaration of Independence. The glamour perpetually before the eyes of modern biographers about the natural equity and the rights of man prevailing in the sixteenth century has misled them into many errors.

Cortez had no scruples on the subject of his negro slaves! He does not provide for them. His man, Estevan, had the honor of introducing the small-pox to this continent, at Vera Cruz. Many of the race, both African and Spanish-born, were brought to the Indies before 1500; but soon after their arrival, proving refractory, they rebelled against the masters in what was called the Maroon war. Others ran away to the mountains, enticing the simple natives with them, where the negro lived in oriental leisure and luxury, in his harem, who worked for him, and provided for all his wants. In 1502, Governor Ovando recommended that further importation be prohibited; because they escaped, and would not work for the planters. The clergy joined in the recommendation, because the negroes took the Indians with them, whereby the Indian could not be instructed in religion.

In 1506, Ovando's recommendation was adopted; but in part only. The introduction of negroes from Africa was prohibited, while the colonists were permitted to bring over Christian negroes born in Spain. The king gave a special license for a few Africans to work in the mines, where they would not come in contact with the natives. Mr. Bancroft, in the fifth chapter of his History of the United States, is quite indignant at the royal hypocrisy; he, too, has the disease of natural equity and rights of man in the cerebellum. This historian observes:

"The Spanish government attempted to disguise the crime by prohibiting the introduction of slaves who had been born in Moorish families. … But the idle pretence was soon abandoned. … King Ferdinand himself (1510) sent fifty slaves to labor in the mines."

The same chapter fifth is full of precious reading to those who are curious to learn how facts sometimes may be interpreted, and history made up.

These are the reasons why Cardinal Ximenes was opposed to the trade, as explained by his biographers; and these, also, for the repugnance of Las Casas to it, as stated several times in his works. But the cardinal determined to raise revenue from the traffic; he thereupon, in 1516, stopped the trade until he could arrange the duties to be levied. For this stoppage, Dr. Robertson fired off an eulogium, which was not applicable. Washington Irving eagerly sought out the chapter in Herrera, referred to by the doctor, and was duly disgusted on finding that Ximenes was not thinking about sublime moral sentiments, but about money. The biographer of Columbus was much perplexed; he could only console himself for the discrepancy by remarking that, "Cardinal Ximenes in fact, though a wise and upright statesman, was not troubled with scruples of conscience on the question of natural rights." How a cardinal can be an upright man without an invariable delicacy of conscience, wherewith to decide justly at all times, surpasses common comprehension. The excuse for Ximenes is about equal to the compliment for John Smith, if it were said that the ubiquitous John is an exemplary member of society when he is sober.

On second thoughts, Mr. Helps, after all, may be entitled to higher rank, by comparison with other authors, than on first impression is accorded to him. His home is in a hemisphere where historical questions, purely American, are receding more and more from public consideration; while most of the other gentlemen belong to this side of the Atlantic, where such subjects are rising in the horizon, and claiming greater attention. If facts, then, of the first magnitude are Overlooked in the new world, how many more will be overlooked in the old? If they do these things in the green tree at Boston, what shall be done by a Dryasdust in London?

Space does not permit an examination of other faults of less gravity attributed to Las Casas. It is said that, when he wrote his Brief Account, he exaggerated in over-stating the immense extent of the destruction among the aborigines; that his excited feelings and tender sensibilities had led him astray by the unparalleled atrocities perpetrated in his presence. But on the contrary, it was the magnitude of these atrocities which excited his feelings and shocked his sensibilities. Every word in the Brief Account can be maintained; furthermore, it will be found his statement in that tale of horror is not only true, but falls short of all the truth. Foreign nations, jealous and dreading the greatness of Spain, eagerly translated and published the Account. It soon appeared in print in English, in French, in Dutch, and Latin; it would have also been presented in German, if a German literature had been in existence: Caricature pictures embellished the pages, depicting scenes in the many modes of torture practised upon the Indians, upon the simple, innocent, confiding, naked men and women, upon little boys and girls, scarce beyond infancy.

These unheard-of crimes sent a thrill throughout Christendom, and set a stigma for cruelty on the Castilian name. The Spanish people, proverbial for their honesty, humanity, and integrity, acting with little wisdom, denied the correctness of the account; consequently, they were required to make good their denial. This being impossible, the nation took vengeance on the memory of Las Casas, when in his grave. But the conduct was foolish; the nation was no more responsible for the outrage on the natives, than it is responsible for a gang of desperadoes and outlaws in the mountain, who let loose their bull-dogs on kids and lambs in the Sierra Morena. Consequently, the name of Las Casas was held up to national execration, wherever was spoken the beautiful idiom of Castile. The learned looked upon his virtuous exertions with cold suspicion; literature became tinctured with it; the church, catching the tone of public opinion in the Iberian peninsula, withheld her recognition and recompense; thus ignoring perhaps her greatest ornament and benefactor in modern times. In the course of years, his name passed almost into oblivion in Spain when the asperity died out. But among the officials in Spanish America, hatred to him was imperishable. So far down, even in 1811, the Consulado of the City of Mexico denounced him as a "most illustrious Spanish declaimer, who wished to make himself renowned at the expense of the true national glory; and if he followed it some time, he gained at last the merited odium of posterity and the contempt of all honest and right-minded foreigners." At the same moment, nearly thirty millions of the native population, the descendants of those whom he was mainly instrumental in saving from slavery and consequent destruction, sent forth daily their grateful hymns in praise of his virtues, and in their orisons besought the heavenly grace to grant sweet repose to his imperishable soul.

Well does he deserve their gratitude. At the beginning, Las Casas was a missionary unto the missions; he taught the clergy first that the natives were intellectual beings like themselves; he organized the movement for the extirpation of slavery; he instructed them how to appeal to the conscience of the dying man holding fellow-men in bondage; he ordered them to refuse the sacraments to the strong, who approached the holy altar; he reported the plan for the missionary government to the sovereigns in Spain; he organized it in America; and originated the method by which the docile creatures were collected into communities or pueblos, far removed from the white race; he laid down the rules for the hours of labor and repose, for their instruction and for their civilization. He instituted the regulations for the guidance of the priests, and instilled into them the duty of watching over their flock at all times, in all places; to shield them from oppression; to alleviate their distress in sickness; to soothe them in affliction; to counsel them when in health; to be their guide, comforter, and friend. Nor has one of his teachings been changed or set aside. They remain to this day in full vigor in every pueblo, from the furthest confines of California to the most remote mission of Paraguay. When he passed away from earth, at the extreme age of ninety-two, the spirit with which his zeal was animated, was caught up by the priesthood who sat at his feet to listen to his inspired words. The germ he planted in their bosom grew with their growth, strengthened with their strength. A world was redeemed, and an humble monk from Seville, a truly God-fearing man, Bartoleme Las Casas, was their redeemer.

The time has gone by when the European mind can do him justice. Colonial affairs of the Western continent have no longer an interest in that quarter. His native land has thrown him off. It is only in America the greatness of his achievement can be portrayed, the lustre of his fame renewed. Nor can this pleasing task be accomplished in Spanish America, where as yet a provincial literature prevails. It must come, if come at all, from out of our own republic. More than one half of the immense, wide-spreading territory of the United States once belonged to Spain; and Spanish missionary institutions, laws, customs, and manners underlie the Anglo-Saxon historical, legislative, and judicial superstructure of a later period. Jurists are now in search, groping in the dark, for the clue to that seemingly inextricable labyrinth of civilization on which Spanish-American history is founded, and from whence contemporaneous laws and customs are derived, in order to elucidate intricate principles daily arising in the adjudication of titles to lands.

The highest court approaches the deciding of such cases with some trepidation and more distrust, lest they misapprehend a Spanish colonial law or do not understand the reason for the enactment of the law; or because, also, a contract may be misinterpreted from misinformation of local institutions and local phrases, that throw their atmosphere around expressed stipulations in legal documents. They now feel the necessity for an exposition dating back to the commencement of Castilian occupancy on this continent and the institution of missions. In vain have they sought for that source of knowledge, for that corner-stone upon which to construct the true theory over again of viceregal domination. At last they will turn to the works of Las Casas, to master their contents; and when understood, they will lay their hand on what remains of his noble intellect, and exclaim, "Thou art the man." Then will be unfolded the mysteries of the Spanish colonial double codes, and advocates will expound them with the courage and confidence with which they expatiate upon the common law of England.

It was as idle to look among various races of peaceful aborigines, for the founder of their civilization, clothed in the garb of a warrior, wearing a sword at his side, as to expect to encounter the great protector and first chief magistrate of a mighty military nation under the cowl of a monk. Las Casas was to the Spanish domain west of the Mississippi river what Washington was to our English territory east of it; and as resort is constantly had to the writings of the great general, to understand the principles of government in one portion of the republic, reference must be made to the essays of the great missionary to explain the ideas and objects for which the other was inhabited. American jurisprudence will be the channel through which a proper estimate of Las Casas will be attained. Then shall his works be placed in the alcoves of libraries along with the documentary legacies of Washington, of Jefferson, of Hamilton, and Adams; and chapels will be erected to enshrine his relics in marbles, in malachite and lazuli, in gems and in gold. For it will then be established that Bartoleme Las Casas in America gained and preserved more souls to the church, than in Europe the heresy of Luther ever lost.

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