nd, the
father would modify his accusations in the next sermon. When the day
arrived the church was crowded, but instead of recantation, the
intrepid monk launched out upon fresh animadversion, and ended by
saying that he did so in the service not of God only, but of the king.

The officials were furious. Pasamonte, the treasurer, the most
heartless destroyer of natives among all the king's officers, wrote,
denouncing the Dominicans as rebels, and sent a Franciscan friar to
Spain to support his accusation. The king was much offended, and when
Montesinos and the prior of his convent arrived in Madrid to
contradict Pasamonte's statements, they found the doors of the palace
closed against them. Nothing daunted and imbued with the true
apostolic spirit, they made their way, without asking permission, to
the royal presence, and there advocated the cause of the Indians so
eloquently that Ferdinand promised to have the matter investigated
immediately. A council of theologians and jurists was appointed to
study the matter and hear the evidence on both sides; but they were so
long in coming to a decision that Montesinos and his prior lost
patience and insisted on a resolution, whereupon they decided that the
distributions were legal in virtue of the powers granted by the Holy
See to the kings of Castilla, and that, if it was a matter of
conscience at all, it was one for the king and his councilors, and not
for the officials, who simply obeyed orders. The two Dominicans were
ordered to return to la Espanola, and by the example of their virtues
and mansuetude stimulate those who might be inclined to act wickedly.

The royal conscience was not satisfied, however, with the sophistry of
his councilors, and as a quietus to it, the _well-meaning_ ordinances
just cited were enacted. They, too, remained a dead letter, and not
even the scathing and persevering denunciations of Las Casas, who
continued the good work begun by Montesinos, could obtain any
practical improvement in the lot of the Indians until it was too late,
and thousands of them had been crushed under the heel of the
conqueror.

* * * * *

King Ferdinand's efforts to make Puerto Rico a prosperous colony were
rendered futile by the dissensions between the Admiral's and his own
partizans and the passions awakened by the favoritism displayed in the
distribution of Indians. That the king took a great interest in the
colonization of the island