t merely the questions of holding slaves and cruel treatment were
involved, but likewise those which had to do with the right to hold
property acquired unjustly from the natives and by violation of the law.

This treatise was doubtless the same that was published in 1552 entitled
_Confesionario_, etc., or in any case it contained the root doctrines of
which that tract may have been an elaboration. Both upon the ability and
the fidelity of the two confessors he had selected, the Bishop felt he
could rely, but in the case of the Dean he was again mistaken in his
choice, for in certain of the reserved cases the latter declared that he
found no grounds, either in canon law or in any authorities, for his
Bishop's decision. The Mercedarian friars, who also had a community in
the diocese, were likewise opposed to the severity of the Bishop, and as
none of the colonists were disposed to ruin themselves by liberating the
Indians, the situation was a grave one for a Catholic community, for no
matter how little in conformity with the Church's teaching were the daily
lives of many, excommunication was intolerable to all of them.
Remonstrances and petitions against his trenchant decision poured in upon
the Bishop, and the Dean, supported by the Mercedarians, undertook to
intercede for the Spaniards and, if possible, to obtain some relaxation of
the obnoxious ruling. Their efforts were vain, for the simple reason that
Las Casas held that it was not within his competence to recede from his
decision without practically denying his life's mission. As the tension
became daily more severe, the colonists addressed to the Bishop, a formal
"requirement" drawn up by a notary public, containing arguments to support
their claims, based on the terms of the Bull of Alexander VI. and
threatening, if he persisted in refusing them the sacraments, to appeal to
his metropolitan, the Archbishop of Mexico, and ultimately to the Pope:
meanwhile they would denounce him to the King and his Council as a
disturber of the public peace and a formenter of dissensions and troubles
in the country. To this threat the Bishop answered: "O blind men! How
completely does the devil deceive you! Wherefore do you threaten me with
your complaints to the Archbishop, to the Pope, and to the King? Know
then that though I am obliged by the law of God to do as I do, and you to
obey what I tell you, you are likewise constrained thereunto by the most
just laws of your sover