r Spain on business of great importance, so that,
if his friend wished to see him before he started, he must hasten back
from Jamaica. Renteria, in consequence, finished his business in the
island and returned as quickly as possible to Cuba, where he was met upon
landing by the Governor, Las Casas, and numerous others, for he was a very
popular and much esteemed man in the colony. It was only when the two
friends finally found themselves alone that an exchange of confidences
became possible, and Renteria, yielding to the insistence of Las Casas,
unfolded his plan for the establishment of Indian schools. Each in turn
was surprised and gratified to learn the project of the other and, after
some discussion and arguments, it was decided that, of the two, Las Casas
was the one who must go to Spain. Renteria disposed of his Jamaica
purchases and, out of the profits, furnished his friend with money enough
to defray the expenses of what was foreseen would be a long and doubtless
costly sojourn at court.

At this same juncture, the Dominican Prior in Santo Domingo sent four of
his monks to establish a community in Cuba, choosing as their Prior, Fray
Bernardo, who is described as both a pious and a learned man. The
Governor of Cuba received these religious with great satisfaction, but to
no one did their coming afford greater joy than to Las Casas. The
Dominicans began a series of earnest and edifying sermons, in the course
of which practical applications of Scripture texts were made to the actual
condition of affairs in the colony; and, by using the information
furnished them by Las Casas, the preachers were able to make very forcible
home thrusts on the subject of the injustice of the system of serfage and
the grave responsibility of those Spaniards who oppressed the Indians.
These sermons disturbed the conscience of the colonists but not to the
point of amending their evil system, so the chief result was a general
feeling of dissatisfaction within themselves and one of intensified
exasperation towards the preachers of such uncomfortable doctrine. The
monks, on their part, realising that it was idle to combat with purely
spiritual weapons a system of evils which everybody was interested in
maintaining, perceived their only hope of success lay in having their
hands strengthened by royal support, and accordingly their Prior decided
to go to Spain with Las Casas, where they might co-operate in their
undertaking.

C