answer Sepulveda's arguments and defend the
freedom of his Indians. The war of words waxed fast and furious, and the
controversy attracted so much attention that the Emperor ordered the
India Council to assemble at Valladolid, to decide whether a war of
conquest might justly be carried on against the Indians. The Emperor
himself presided, and Las Casas and Sepulveda argued the question before
them all. It appears to have been a drawn battle; but at length the
Council decided in favor of Sepulveda. The Emperor and the officials of
the government, however, must have been of another opinion, for
Sepulveda's book was suppressed. At the time of this controversy Las
Casas was seventy-six years old.

Soon after this Las Casas resigned his bishopric and the Emperor granted
him a pension. He made his home in the Dominican college of St. Gregory,
at Valladolid, where his old friend Father Ladrada was with him.

And now, after having labored for the Indians for so many years,
crossing and recrossing the ocean, traveling over hundreds of miles of
wild country on foot, like St. Paul, "in perils of waters, in perils of
robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in
perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea,"
he might be seen, day after day and night after night, sitting at his
desk, writing letters, memorials, and pamphlets in defense of his
beloved Indians. He kept up a constant correspondence with all parts of
the New World, and when he heard of any new outrage on the part of the
Spaniards against the natives, he at once brought it to the attention of
Prince Philip, now regent of the kingdom.

At the end of the year 1551 a number of Dominicans and Franciscans
having been induced through his appeals to go out to the Indies, Las
Casas went to Seville to see them off. For some reason they were delayed
there for ten months, and during that time he was kept busy editing a
number of his works, keeping two printing-presses going all the time.

Las Casas must have had a wonderful constitution. His hard life in a
tropical country had neither weakened his body nor impaired his mind.
All his time from the day of his return to Spain to the time of his
death was spent in defense of the Indians; and through his untiring
efforts their condition was much improved in Mexico and elsewhere.

Laws had already been passed which allowed the _encomiendas_, as the
grants of land and Indians in Spanis