ambition of those who
design such villainous operations, may Your Highness be pleased to
supplicate and efficaciously persuade His Majesty to forbid such
harmful and detestable practices to those who seek license for them:
may he silence this infernal demand for ever, with so much terror,
that from this time forward there shall be no one so audacious as to
dare but to name it.
10. This--Most High Lord--is most fitting and necessary to do, that God
may prosper, preserve and render blessed, both temporally and
spiritually, all the State of the royal crown of Castile. Amen.

BREVISSIMA RELACION OR SHORT REPORT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE INDIES

The Indies were discovered in the year fourteen hundred and
ninety-two. The year following, Spanish Christians went to inhabit
them, so that it is since forty-nine years that numbers of Spaniards
have gone there: and the first land, that they invaded to inhabit
was the large and most delightful Isle of Hispaniola which has a
circumference of six hundred leagues.
2. There are numberless other islands, and very large ones, all around
on every side, that were all--and we have seen it--as inhabited and
full of their native Indian peoples as any country in the world.
3. Of the continent, the nearest part of which is more than two hundred
and fifty leagues distant from this Island, more than ten thousand
leagues of maritime coast have been discovered, and more is
discovered every day; all that has been discovered up to the year
forty-nine is full of people, like a hive of bees, so that it seems
as though God had placed all, or the greater part of the entire
human race in these countries.
4. God has created all these numberless people to be quite the
simplest, without malice or duplicity, most obedient, most faithful
to their natural Lords, and to the Christians, whom they serve; the
most humble, most patient, most peaceful, and calm, without strife
nor tumults; not wrangling, nor querulous, as free from uproar, hate
and desire of revenge, as any in the world.
5. They are likewise the most delicate people, weak and of feeble
constitution, and less than any other can they bear fatigue, and
they very easily die of whatsoever infirmity; so much so, that not
even the sons of our Princes and of