as Casas to Spain to solicit aid. He chose
for this mission the same Fray Antonio de Montesinos, whose earnestness in
behalf of the natives rendered him a sympathetic companion, while his own
experience in handling the question in Spain, promised to be of great
assistance to Las Casas. They sailed in September, 1515, and after a
prosperous voyage arrived safely at Seville, where Montesinos lodged in
the monastery of his Order, while Las Casas was given hospitality by his
relatives.

The Archbishop of Seville at that time was Fray Diego de Deza, a Dominican
who stood high in King Ferdinand's favour, and the first service
Montesinos rendered his companion was to present him to the Archbishop, to
whom he had already given some account of the objects which brought them
both to Spain, and of the zeal of Las Casas in a cause which the Dominican
Order had made peculiarly its own. It required no persuasion to enlist
the good offices of the Archbishop, who was in entire sympathy with their
undertaking and promptly furnished Las Casas with a warm letter to the
King, commending both the cause and its advocate. To facilitate his
approach to the King, he furnished Las Casas also with letters to
influential persons in the royal household.

No better beginning could have been desired, and Las Casas set out for
Plasencia where the King then was, arriving there a few days before
Christmas in the year 1515. Thanks to the counsels and information given
him by Montesinos, Las Casas knew something of the court and upon what
persons he might count, who might still be won over, and who were to be
avoided. Among these last, the most notorious and powerful opponents were
the Bishop of Burgos and the Secretary, Lope Conchillos. Whatever virtues
the former may have possessed they were certainly not of the apostolic
order and his appointment to the high office of President of the India
Council was one of the earliest and greatest calamities that overtook
American interests. Las Casas was careful, therefore, to defer meeting
these two personages and to refrain from disclosing the object of his
presence until he should have first secured a hearing from the King, whose
sympathy he hoped to enlist before his opponents could prejudice the
monarch against him. Again fortune favoured him, and two days before
Christmas he was closeted with the King, and explained in the fullest
detail the state of things in the islands; the extinction of the nati