elf was, and while he had, when still a secular priest,
sustained a stout fight, unaided save by such friends as chance and his
own efforts might here and there secure him, he could, after his
profession, count upon the moral and active support of one of the most
powerful religious organisations of the age. His retirement, therefore,
proved to be a period of refreshment, during which he reinforced his
powers for continuing his propaganda and, while losing nothing of his
original enthusiasm and determination, he returned to the scene of his
former activity with renewed courage and a great religious Order at his
back.

Determined as he was to forestall a repetition in Peru of the
exterminating cruelties perpetrated in the islands, he returned to Court
in his Dominican habit, where he preached several times with great
success. The gift of eloquence he had always possessed, and his eight
years of study and meditation had furnished him with new weapons, which he
wielded with the same fiery zeal that had characterised the first years of
his apostolic championship. During the six months he remained in Spain,
he obtained a royal cedula to be delivered to Pizarro and Almagro,
positively prohibiting the enslavement of any of the natives of Peru for
any reason, or in any manner whatsoever, as they were declared to be the
free vassals of the King, and as much entitled to the possession of their
liberty and property as were the natives of Castile itself. The obnoxious
Bishop of Burgos had long since fallen into disgrace and was dead, so that
Las Casas was free to carry on his negotiations with the India Council
without encountering at every step the obstacles and delays his old enemy
had formerly opposed to his projects.

During his absence in Spain, the first provincial chapter of the
Dominicans had been held in Hispaniola, and on his return there he learned
that the monastery of San Domingo in Mexico had been designated as the
chief house of the province, with Fray Francisco de San Miguel as the
first Prior. Las Casas, in company with other friars embarked with the new
Prior for Mexico, his own destination being Peru, where he had not only to
deliver the royal cedula he had secured, but also to found some convents
in those regions. The friars in Mexico did not welcome their new Prior as
cordially as they might have done, but Fray Bartholomew, ever ready to
exercise his powers of universal peace-maker, smoothed the difficultie