ess badly off; there, at
least, such things dare not be done publicly, because there is
somewhat more justice than elsewhere, although very little, for they
still kill the people with infernal burdens.
4. I have great hope, for the Emperor and King of Spain our Lord Don
Carlos, Fifth of this name is getting to understand the wickedness
and treachery that, contrary to the will of God, and of himself, is
and has been done to those people and in those countries; heretofore
the truth has been studiously hidden from him, that it is his duty
to extirpate so many evils and bring succour to that new world,
given him by God, as to one who is a lover and observer of justice,
whose glorious, and happy life and Imperial state may God Almighty
long prosper, to the relief of all his universal Church, and for the
final salvation of his own Royal soul. Amen.

Since the above was written, some laws and edicts have been
published by His Majesty, who was then in the town of Barcelona, in
the month of November 1542 and in the town of Madrid the following
year; these contain such provisions as now seem suitable to bring
about the cessation of the great wickedness and sin committed
against God and our fellow creatures, to the total ruin and
destruction of that world.
2. After many conferences and debates amongst conscientious and learned
authorities, who were assembled in the town of Valladolid, His
Majesty made the said laws; acting finally on the decision and
opinion of the greater part of all those who gave their votes in
writing, and who drew nearer to the law of Jesus Christ, as true
Christians. They were likewise free from the corruption and
foulness of the treasures stolen from the Indies that soiled the
hands, and still more the souls of many in authority who, in their
blindness, had committed unscrupulous destruction.
3. When these laws were published, the agents of the tyrants, then at
Court, made many copies of them; they displeased all these men who
considered that they shut the doors to their participation in what
was robbed and taken by tyranny: and they sent the copies to divers
parts of the Indies.
4. None of those who there had charge of robbing the Indians, and of
finishing their destruction by their tyranny, had ever obs