r del Campo, the licentiate Vargas, and all the Flemings who had
seats in Councils. Besides these, the King desired that whenever the
affairs of Las Casas were to come under consideration, the voting members
of all other Councils, including those of War and of the Inquisition,
should be present. In virtue of this command, the Cardinal Adrian, who was
at that time Grand Inquisitor of Spain, sometimes assisted. This newly
constituted Council met rarely, owing to the pressure of public matters of
grave importance to the country, and the Bishop of Burgos, who was
mortally vexed by the royal decision in favour of Las Casas's complaint,
was fertile in pretexts for creating delays. To counteract such
procrastination, the Grand Chancellor adopted the policy of citing the
Bishop to Council meetings without specifying the nature of the business
to be considered, and when the unsuspecting prelate appeared, expecting to
treat matters of state, he frequently had Las Casas and his Indian affairs
sprung upon him. The number of the Council being increased by the
admission of the new members from five to more than thirty, the Bishop was
powerless to oppose effective resistance, as he could only count on the
votes of his five original associates. Nor did the clipping of the
Bishop's claws stop there, for whenever he appeared at Court, some of the
Flemings contrived, to his intense disgust, to bring the subject of the
Indies to the King's attention, so that it only remained for him to appear
as rarely as possible.

The Council having consented to the projects of Las Casas, in spite of the
Bishop's persistent opposition, orders were given for the necessary
authorisations for carrying out his proposed plan. At this juncture the
Bishop discovered an ally in the person of Gonzalez Fernandez de Oviedo,
author of the _Historia natural y moral de las Indias_, who had passed
much time in America and was highly esteemed as an authority in Indian
matters. Oviedo was presented to the Chancellor and explained his reasons
for condemning the plans of Las Casas but failed to change Gattinara's
opinion. Representatives of the colonists in Cuba and Hispaniola spared
no effort to defeat their opponent, promising, if the concessions Las
Casas was asking were granted to them, to pay triple the income to the
Crown which the latter offered. This offer by the procurators of the
colonists was not ignored, and, by command of the King, was laid before
the Cou