“Furthermore we ordain and command that from now and henceforth no Viceroy, Governor, Audiencia, discoverer, or any other persons whatsoever shall allot Indians in encomienda, neither by new provision or resignation, donation, sale, nor in any other form or manner; neither by vacancies, nor inheritance, but, that on the death of any person holding the said Indians, they shall revert to our royal Crown. Let the Audiencias take means to be immediately and particularly informed concerning the deceased person, his rank, merits, services, and his treatment of his Indians and whether there is a widow or children; they shall send us a report on the condition of the Indians and of the property that we may order what may be best for our service and may make such provision as may seem good to us for the widow and children of the deceased. Should the Audiencia meanwhile perceive a need to provide for such widow and children, they may do this out of the tribute paid by the said Indians, giving them a moderate amount for these Indians are under our Crown, as stated.” This article provided for the gradual and total extinction of slavery, with due regard to the interests of the colonists, and though it did not meet the wishes of Las Casas for the immediate and absolute correction of the prevailing abuses, its strict application promised to produce more slowly, the results which he sought. On the 20th of November, 1542, Charles V. signed the Nuevas Leyes of Valladolid, in the city of Barcelona, and their publication immediately followed. Las Casas was in Valencia at this time and it was there that he finished the best known of all his writings, which was first printed in 1552 under the title _Brevissima Relacion de la Destruycion de la Indias_, and bore a dedication to Philip II. (52) This little book, as the reader may see from the translation of it given at the close of this volume, is a veritable catalogue of horrors. Man’s invention has its limits, and the ways of torturing the human body are numbered, hence, as the descriptions of the various scenes of brutality repeat themselves over and over in the same language, they end by becoming wearisome. The book was speedily translated into various European languages and its dissemination aroused a tempest of indignation against the Spanish colonial system in America. Its contents were made to serve in the religious and political controversies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and Las Casas was cited as a witness both against his Church and his country.