1. 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. 2.2. 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. 3.3. 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. 4.4. None of those who there had charge of robbing the Indians, and of finishing their destruction by their tyranny, had ever observed any order, but such disorder as might have been made by Lucifer; when they saw the copies, before the arrival of the new judges who were to execute them, it is said and believed that they had been warned of what was coming by those in Spain, who have till now encouraged their sins and violence. They were so agitated, that when the good judges who were to carry out the laws arrived, they resolved to set aside shame and obedience to the King, just as they had already lost all love and fear of God. 5.5. They thus determined to let themselves be called traitors, for they are cruel and unbridled tyrants, particularly in the kingdoms of Peru, where at present, in this year of 1546, such horrible, frightful, and execrable deeds are committed, as have never been done, either in the Indies or in the world; not only do such things happen among the Indians whom they have already all or nearly all killed, but among themselves. In the absence of the King’s justice to punish them, God’s justice has come from heaven to bring dissension amongst them and to make one to be the executioner of the other. 6.6. Shielded by the rebellion of these tyrants, those in all the other regions, would not obey the laws and, under pretext of appealing against them, have also revolted; they resent having to abdicate the