ng earnest appeals to
them to stop the iniquities which were devastating the entire coast. He
urged, with all the arguments of which he was master, that the one hundred
leagues asked for should be conceded. The Bishop of Burgos was unmoved,
both by the Prior's harrowing description of the outrages committed on the
Indians and by the appeal of Las Casas, and he coolly answered that the
King would be badly advised to grant a hundred leagues of land to the
friars, without some return therefor; a reply which Las Casas observes was
unworthy of a successor of the Apostles. Poor as the Bishop was in
episcopal qualities, he was even less gifted with those which make a good
minister of colonial affairs, and the results of his thirty-five years of
control of Indian affairs were as unprofitable to the Spanish Crown as
they were disastrous to the Indians.

Las Casas did not hesitate to express his opinion to the Bishop with his
customary uncompromising frankness, but with no result, save probably that
of confirming his stubborn and hostile attitude.

Perceiving that no argument which did not promise lucrative returns would
avail to secure a grant of territory, the clerigo evolved a plan that
promised to secure the ends for which he and the Dominicans were striving
and, at the same time, would assure a profitable investment for the Crown.

In spite of the Bishop's continued opposition, Las Casas pushed forward
his plan for colonising, and though the Chancellor's death was a great
loss to him, he nevertheless found in Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht and other
Flemings, every possible assistance. He was named royal chaplain in order
to give him additional prestige before the public, and letters were sent
throughout the kingdom to the principal civil and ecclesiastical
authorities, ordering some and inviting others to aid him by every means
in their power to collect the desired emigrants. The officials of India
House in Seville were instructed to receive and attend to those intending
to emigrate under Las Casas, when they arrived in Seville; they were
likewise directed to prepare the necessary ships to transport them to
America. It was necessary that Las Casas should be accompanied on his
recruiting tour through the country by some trustworthy man to help him in
enrolling his emigrants, and, as fate would have it, his choice fell most
unfortunately upon one Berrio, an Italian, a circumstance which Las Casas
afterwards observed was, in i