d in the affair of Enrique to a visit he paid him after peace was
concluded. Remesal bases his narrative on documents which he declares he
found in the archives of the Audiencia of Guatemala, and there seems no
sufficient motive for doubting the veracity of the evidence. Las Casas,
in describing what took place in the early part of the troubles with
Enrique (1520), does not say positively that he took part in the first
negotiations for peace, but he does clearly give it to be understood that
the successful issue of the final efforts was owing to his intervention.
A detailed account of the conclusion of the rebellion would, according to
the system adopted in writing his _History_, find its rightful place in
the fourth book, which is missing, though there is little room for doubt
that it was written and may possibly still be discovered.

Concerning the journey which--according to Remesal--Las Casas made to Spain
in 1530, very little is known, and Quintana is as sceptical about this
voyage as about the part attributed to him by some biographers in
Enrique's subjugation, though there seems as little reason in this
instance to doubt the explicit statement of one whose good faith is as far
above suspicion as his opportunities for knowing the facts were
exceptional.

Torquemada represents Fray Juan Zumarraga, the first Bishop of Mexico, as
visiting Spain in 1532, and as having previously written asking that the
colonists should be prohibited from enslaving the Indians, and that during
that time identical representations had been made to the government by the
Bishop of Chiapa, Don Bartolome de Las Casas, (42) which procured letters
patent from the Empress-Regent signed in 1530, before the bishop of Mexico
arrived. (43) The scepticism of Quintana seems hardly justified.

The occasion of the alleged journey was the recent discovery and conquest
of Peru by Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro. The fate of these
millions of people, newly subjected to the Castilian crown could not have
been a matter of indifference to Las Casas. They stood far higher in the
scale of civilisation than the naked islanders, possessing as they did, as
great an empire as the Mexicans, with religion, laws, and literature of a
high order of development. While the entrance of Las Casas into a
monastic order was, in one sense, a retirement from the world, he had
chosen a community whose members were as devoted to the defence of the
Indians as he hims