Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/524

498 498 SPANISH COLONIAL POLICY. PART II. Immediate profits from the discov- eries. of distribution on so terrific a scale, that a letter of Columbus, written shortly after Isabella's death, represents more than six sevenths of the whole population of Hispaniola to have melted away un- der it ! '^ The queen was too far removed to enforce the execution of her own beneficent measures ; nor is it probable, that she ever imagined the extent of their violation, for there was no intrepid philanthro- pist, in that day, like Las Casas, to proclaim to the world the wrongs and sorrows of the Indian.^" A conviction, however, of the unworthy treatment of the natives seems to have pressed heavily on her heart ; for in a codicil to her testament, dated a few days only before her death, she invokes the kind offices of her successor in their behalf in such strong and affectionate language, as plainly indi- cates how intently her thoughts were occupied with their condition down to the last hour of her exist- ence. The moral grandeur of the maritime discoveries under this reign must not so far dazzle us, as to lead to a very high estimate of their immediate re- sults in an economical view. Most of those articles 19 Ibid, ubi supra. — Las Casas, Hist. Ind., lib. 2, cap. 36, MS., apud Irving, vol. iii. p. 412. — The venerable bishop confirms this frightful picture of desolation, in its full extent, in his various memo- rials prepared for the council of the Indies. CEuvres, ed. de Llorente, torn. i. passim. 20 Las Casas made his first voyage to the Indies, it is true, in 1498, or at latest 1502 ; but there is no trace of his taking an active part in denouncing the oppressions of the Spaniards earlier than 1510, when he combined his efforts with those of the Dominican missiona- ries lately arrived in St. Domingo, in the same good work. It was not until some years later, 1515, that he returned to Spain and plead- ed the cause of the injured na- tives before the throne. Llorente, CEuvres de Las Casas, torn. i. pp. 1 -23. — Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Nova, torn. i. pp. 191, 192. 2i See the will, apud Dormer Discursos Varios, p. 381.