the Confines, arrived at Ciudad Real just as the Bishop was
preparing for his journey to Mexico where one Francisco Tello de Sandoval,
whom the Emperor had sent as Visitor-General of New Spain, had convoked a
meeting of all the bishops and prelates in America to confer upon the
vexed questions concerning the Indians, about which opinion was so divided
as to render hopeless any acceptable legislation from Madrid. The
celebrated Sepulveda, one of the most learned scholars and ablest men of
his times, led the opposition to the doctrines of Las Casas and sustained
the theory that servitude was the rightful and natural state of the
Indians and that it was justifiable to subdue them by force to Spanish
rule.

On the 20th of November, 1545, the Emperor, in response to the arguments
and petitions of the representatives of the colonists, had abrogated the
most important articles of the New Laws--in fact had substantially revoked
them, though this action was not yet known in Chiapa, where the Bishop
received the Auditor Rogel, to whom he highly praised the New Laws, whose
application was the object of Rogel's visit. The Auditor, after hearing
him out, said: "Your lordship well knows that though these New Laws and
Ordinances were framed in Valladolid by the agreement of such grave
personages,--as your lordship and I witnessed--one of the reasons which has
rendered them so hateful in the Indies has been the fact that your
lordship had a hand in proposing and framing them: for the conquerors
consider your lordship so prejudiced against them, that they believe that
what you obtain for the natives is not so much for love of the Indians as
for hatred of them. Entertaining such a suspicion, they would feel it
more, were I to deprive them while your lordship is present, than the loss
itself of their slaves and estates; Senor Don Francisco Tello de Sandoval
has summoned your lordship to this meeting of prelates which takes place
in Mexico and I would be glad if you would prepare for your journey and
hasten your departure, for until your lordship is gone I can do nothing.
I do not want it said that I am doing what is necessary out of respect, as
everything would thereby be lost."

This plain speaking, in which Las Casas recognised much truth, convinced
him that by remaining, he would only retard the cause he desired to help,
so he quickly completed his preparations and left Ciudad Real in the first
week of Lent in 1546, hardly a year a