heir opinion. They said that
four thousand at present would suffice, being one thousand for each of
the islands, Espanola, Porto Rico, Cuba, and Jamaica. Somebody now
suggested to the Governor, De Bresa, a Fleming of much influence and a
member of the council, that he should ask for this license to be given
to him. De Bresa accordingly asked the King for it, who granted his
request; and the Fleming sold this license to certain Genoese
merchants for twenty-five thousand ducats, having obtained from the
King a pledge that for eight years he should give no other license of
this kind.

The consequence of this monopoly enjoyed by the Genoese merchants was
that negroes were sold at a great price, of which there are frequent
complaints. Both Las Casas and Pasamonte--rarely found in
accord--suggested to the King that it would be better to pay the
twenty-five thousand ducats and resume the license, or to abridge its
term. Figueroa, writing to the Emperor from Sonto Domingo, says:
"Negroes are very much in request; none have come for about a year. It
would have been better to have given De Bresa the customs
duties--_i.e._, the duties that had been usually paid on the
importation of slaves--than to have placed a prohibition." I have
scarcely a doubt that the immediate effect of the measure adopted in
consequence of the clerigo's suggestion was greatly to check that
importation of negro slaves which otherwise, had the license been
general, would have been very abundant.

Before quitting this part of the subject, something must be said for
Las Casas which he does not allege for himself. This suggestion of his
about the negroes was not an isolated one. Had all his suggestions
been carried out, and the Indians thereby been preserved, as I firmly
believe they might have been, these negroes might have remained a very
insignificant number in the general population. By the destruction of
Indians a void in the laborious part of the community was being
constantly created, which had to be filled up by the labor of negroes.
The negroes could bear the labor in the mines much better than the
Indians; and any man who perceived that a race, of whose Christian
virtues and capabilities he thought highly, were fading away by reason
of being subjected to labor which their natures were incompetent to
endure, and which they were most unjustly condemned to, might prefer
the misery of the smaller number of another race treated with equal
injustice, bu