e
Cardinal had for him or of the credit which he gave to him."

The result of the conferences was that Ximenes authorized Las Casas,
Palacios Rubios and Antonio Montesino to prepare the draft of a plan for
emancipating the Indians and providing for their just government and
education. When the plan was completed and adopted there was some
question as to whom it should be entrusted for execution. Ximenes
invited Las Casas to nominate a commission, but the latter declined
because his long absence from Spain had left him unfamiliar with men
there and their qualifications. The Cardinal therefore decided to select
a commission from among the monks of the Order of St. Jerome. That Order
was selected because, while the Dominicans and Franciscans were already
settled in Hispaniola and Jamaica and had committed themselves to a
certain policy toward the Indian question, the Jeronimites had not yet
gone thither and were quite without bias or predisposition.

This was on July 8, 1516. The following Sunday the Cardinal and other
members of the council, and also Las Casas, went to the Jeronimite
monastery, near Madrid, to attend mass and to make a selection of three
Commissioners or judges from among the twelve who had been nominated by
the head of the Order. There Las Casas was received with much
distinction by the monks and by the Cardinal, to the chagrin of his
enemy the Bishop of Burgos, who was present in the congregation. After
some consideration, Ximenes then announced that Las Casas should be
provided with money and letters of credit to the General of the Order at
Seville, and should himself go thither and select the three
Commissioners. This was immediately done, and the result was the
selection of Luis de Figueroa, Prior of La Mejorada; Alonzo de Santo
Domingo, Prior of Ortega; and Bernardino Manzanedo. These three were
thereupon commissioned by Ximenes to proceed to Hispaniola, to take away
all the Indians held by members of the Council, judges and other
officers, and hold a court of impeachment upon all colonial officers,
who were charged as having "lived, like Moors, without a king." They
were then to consult with both the colonists and the chief men among the
Indians as to the condition of the Indians and the ways and means of
bettering it; so that the Indians, who had become Christians, should be
set free and enabled to govern themselves. They were to assure the
Indians it was the will of the Cardinal that they should