to preach openly against the government, instructing
the public conscience on the subject and assigning to the King his just
share of the wrong-doing.

Action followed swiftly upon the adoption of this resolution, and the
India Council, under the presidency of the redoubtable Bishop of Burgos,
was stupefied by the apparition of the theologians at one of its sittings.
Fray Miguel de Salamanca, after asking for permission of the President,
made the following brief but energetic discourse: "Most illustrious
gentlemen and most reverend sir: It has been certified to us, the
preachers of the King our lord, by persons whom we are forced to believe,
and it also appears to be notorious, that men of our Spanish nation in the
Indies commit great and unheard-of evils against the natives of those
parts; such as robberies and murders, thereby giving the greatest offence
to God and bringing infamy on our holy faith, and by which such an
infinite number of people have perished that large islands and a great
part of the mainland are now depopulated, to the great ignominy even of
the Royal Crown of Spain; for the Holy Scripture testifies that in the
multitude of the people consists the dignity and honour of the King, and
in their diminution is his ignominy and dishonour. We have marvelled at
this, knowing the prudence and merits of the illustrious persons who
compose the Council for the government of those countries, to whom God
appears to have confided such a great world as they are said to
constitute, and for which they will have to render a strict account; on
the other hand, learning that there can have been no reason why those
nations, which lived peaceably in their countries, owing us nothing,
should have been destroyed by us, we know not what to say, nor do we find
any one to whom to impute such irreparable evils, other than to those who
until now have governed them. Since it is incumbent upon us, by virtue of
the office we hold at court, to oppose and denounce everything that is an
offence and a dishonour to the Divine Majesty and to souls and, to the
extent of our powers, to exhort until all such be extirpated, we have
decided, before adopting other measures, to come before your lordships and
make our purpose known, and to supplicate you to consent to explain to us
how it has been possible to permit such a great evil without remedying it;
and that since it has not until now been stopped--for it goes on to-day
with full license--