them so far as they should deserve it; and in case of their adopting a bad line of conduct, they should again feel the effect of our vengeance." Then followed another of those wholesale conversions; the Indians renounced their idols, and were received into the bosom of the holy Catholic church. And thenceforth they were to be under the loving care of the priests, and the cherished children of the King of Spain; in return for which they were only called upon to give the priests and soldiers all their property, all their gold, all their handsome maidens, all their strong young men. The Spaniards had found them freemen, living happily in their primitive villages in the forest; they left them slaves, stripped of all possessions, bleeding from a thousand wounds, and lamenting a thousand deaths.
It has been said by at least one historian that the Spaniards were assisted by one of the saints that day, the warlike apostle St. James, who rode a dappled horse, and charged the unregenerate heathen right valiantly. If this be true, it should but increase our sympathy for the poor Indians, for what with the cannon, horse, and musketry of the Spaniards, the odds were sufficiently against them without the intervention of apostolic aid.
