eign, since you think yourselves such faithful
vassals to him." After reading some of the articles of the New Laws
forbidding slavery to them, he continued: "According to this, it is I who
might much better complain of you, for not obeying your King." The
situation was a deadlock, for the Bishop was immovable, neither would the
Spaniards give way. From murmuring against his decision and questioning
his authority to impose such unreasonable and ruinous commands, they
passed to calumny and ridicule, and as these weapon are forged by evil
imaginations and their exercise is unhampered by the restrictions of
truth, many fantastic accusations were invented against Las Casas, and
diligently circulated. The most frugal and abstemious of men was accused
of gluttony and intemperance; his learning, which was certainly varied if
not vast and was by no means mediocre, was declared to be superficial and
insufficient to enable him to properly weigh nice questions of theology
and law, and finally it was insinuated that some of his opinions were
heretical and that his refusal to allow the sacraments of penance and the
eucharist in his diocese proceeded from his dissembled Lutheranism. As a
hint of what might overtake him if he persisted in his course, a musket
was fired into the window of his room one night. Even the children were
taught scurrilous couplets which they sang at him, when he appeared in the
streets: only his Dominicans remained faithful to him in this difficult
season and their fidelity, though doubtless a source of great consolation
to him, had for its chief visible effect, to involve the friars in the
popular execration visited on the Bishop. It was a repetition of the
incidents in Hispaniola, for likewise in Chiapa the people turned against
the friars, refraining from their ministrations and refusing them alms and
support. (57)

The first act of open rebellion came from the Dean, who administered the
communion during Holy Week to various persons who not only continued to
hold their Indians in spite of the Bishop's remonstrances and admonitions,
but were notoriously engaged at that very time in buying and selling
slaves. The disobedience of his subordinate could not be left unnoticed
and the bishop resolved to reprimand him, but paternally, in presence of
the other clergy, as an example. This intention was more easily formed
than executed, for the Dean refused to appear, although the first summons
came in the fo