speedy adjustment of their complaints. They obtained neither however, and
especially towards Las Casas was the opposition of the auditors directed.
When he first entered the council room, some of them cried: "Out with that
lunatic!" and on another occasion, when Las Casas declined to withdraw,
the President, Maldonado (well named indeed!), ordered him to be ejected
by force. Again, when the Bishop, with great solemnity, demanded that the
Audiencia should correct the abuses complained of and should relieve the
Indians from unlawful oppression, Maldonado answered: "You are a cheat, a
bad man, a bad bishop, a shameful fellow, and you deserve to be
punished."(59)

Such language in open council, addressed by the presiding officer to a
bishop, sounds incredible, and considering the great influence of religion
on all Spaniards of that time, it is not wonderful that after such
insolence, this petty official was regarded by the entire community as
excommunicated; a half-hearted apology, ungraciously made, sufficed
however to avoid an open scandal.

Las Casas had already assured his friars in Ciudad Real that he neither
felt insults nor feared threats, so the vulgar abuse of Maldonado did not
touch him; he drew up and presented a wordy memorial to the Audiencia,
divided into seven articles. The first article affirmed that the Bishop
was hindered in the exercise of his ecclesiastical jurisdiction, by the
opposition of the officers of justice. The second asks for the aid of the
secular arm to punish those guilty of disobedience and sacrilege. The
third asks that the Indians may be relieved from tyrannous oppression,
particularly from the excessive taxes and forced labour exacted from them.
The fourth article solicits the transfer of all causes affecting the
Indians from the civil to the ecclesiastical courts. The fifth begs the
Audiencia to forbid all wars, conquests, invasions of territory, and the
establishment of Spanish haciendas in Yucatan. The sixth article
petitions orders for the good treatment of the few Indians still held by
the Crown in Yucatan, and the seventh asks that the officials of the
Audiencia transfer to the Crown, all Indians and all villages affected by
the royal ordinances already published. The answer of the Audiencia was
brief and amounted to a denial of the Bishop's allegations. (60)
Foreseeing, doubtless, the rupture which must inevitably follow the
presentation of his memorial, Las Casas had alrea