isappearance or by
any diminution of his activity as Protector of the Indians. His habitual
residence from that time on became the College of San Gregorio at
Valladolid, where he had the companionship of his devoted friend Ladrada
and the support of an important community of his Order. Fray Rodrigo, who
also acted as confessor to his old friend, would seem to have been
something of a wag, as it is related of him that when the Bishop had
become somewhat deaf, the confessor might be heard admonishing his
penitent: "Don't you see, Bishop, that you will finish up in hell because
of your want of zeal in defending the Indians whom God has placed in your
charge?"(73)

The royal India Council likewise sat in Valladolid, and this fact may
possibly have influenced the indefatigable Bishop's choice of that city
for his residence. He had made repeated efforts to obtain from the
Council some positive proclamation or declaration, affirming the freedom
of the Indians as a natural and inalienable right, and at this time, he
succeeded in moving that somewhat lethargic body to express a desire for
more explicit information on this subject, before reaching a decision. In
response to an order from the Council, Las Casas wrote his treatise
entitled, _The Liberty of the Enslaved Indians_ (_De la libertad de los
Indios que han sido reducidos a la esclavitud_) which, for greater
convenience, he divided into three parts. The first part treated of the
nullity of the title on which such slavery was based; the second dealt
with the duties of the Spanish sovereign towards the Indians, and the
third was devoted to the obligations of the bishops of the American
dioceses.

In none of his writings are the opinions of Las Casas on questions of the
rights of man and the functions of government more lucidly set forth, and
while many of the arguments on which he rested his propositions, and which
were consonant with the prevalent spirit of his times, would not secure
universal assent in our day, there is not one of the essential principles
of his thesis, that has not since been recognised as inherently and
indisputably just.

His treatise opened as follows:

"I propose in this article to demonstrate three propositions; first, that
all the Indians who have been enslaved since the discovery of the New
World, have been reduced to this sad condition without right or justice;
second that the majority of Spaniards who hold Indian slaves do so in bad
f