pless,
having no power or authority to enforce obedience either to the moral law
he perpetually preached, or to the New Laws he everywhere expounded to the
obdurate colonists. This condition of things, to which no end was
apparent, determined him in June, 1545, to lay the matter before the
Audiencia of the Confines and to demand that the provisions of the New
Laws be enforced. To reach the town of Gracias a Dios from Ciudad Real,
whither he had returned, he took the road through Guatemala, yielding to
the entreaties of his former companion Fray Pedro de Angulo, who desired
him to see the admirable results achieved in the Tierra de Guerra. Truly
after such disappointments, sufferings, and persecutions, the Bishop
deserved the consolation he derived from beholding the transformation of
those formerly savage idolaters, into peaceful and civilised Christians,
living in their towns in an orderly fashion far beyond what his highest
hopes had allowed him to believe possible. The caciques of the different
towns vied with one another in celebrating his arrival, and Las Casas
spoke to them all in their own language and delivered to them the cedulas
he had obtained for them from the Emperor in Barcelona on May 1, 1543, in
which their exemption from every kind of servitude was promised in
perpetuity.

The journey from Tululatzan to Gracias a Dios was both a difficult and a
perilous one, especially at that season when the rains had swollen the
rivers and destroyed the mountain roads. It is significant that
throughout the life of Las Casas in America, he is never once mentioned as
being ill or obliged on account of any infirmity to defer or alter his
plans. His constitution was evidently one of steel. In spite of his
seventy-one years, he reached his destination in due time, where he met
the bishops of Guatemala and Nicaragua, the latter of whom was about to be
consecrated. The Bishop-elect of Nicaragua was Fray Antonio de
Valdivieso, also a Dominican, who fully shared the opinions and sympathies
of Las Casas. All three of these prelates had grievances and petitions
for redress of abuses and for the stricter administration of the laws in
favour of the Indians, to lay before the Audiencia. Since that particular
tribunal had been created for the purpose of executing these laws and was
composed of men whom Las Casas had either chosen himself or recommended,
the bishops were justified in anticipating a favourable hearing and a