Spain have them taught Spanish in order that they may later serve as interpreters. The justification he advanced for this measure was that by taking from their surroundings they would be cured of their cannibalism, converted to Christianity, and their souls saved; besides which, if the cannibals were thus converted, the Indians of the neighbouring islands, who were peaceable and lived in fear of them, would conceive a still higher regard for the Spaniards. This reasoning doubtless commended itself to most people, but the sagacious Queen instantly put her finger upon the flaw in the argument, and on the margin of Columbus’s report is written her answer: “This is all very well and so it must be done; but let the Admiral see whether it might not be _there_ arranged to bring them to our Holy Catholic Faith and the same with the Indians of those islands where he is.” The next suggestion, despite any possible excellence of his motives, was a frank proposal to establish a thriving trade in human flesh as barefaced as could be made by the least scrupulous “blackbirder.” The Admiral, always dwelling upon the spiritual welfare of the cannibal natives, proposed that the more of them that could be captured, the better it would be, and then, mingling temporal advantages to Spaniards with spiritual blessings to the natives, he explained that the quantities of live stock and other necessaries required by the colonists, might be paid for by the sale of slaves sent back to Spain in the ships which would bring these supplies several times a year to the colony. The sovereigns are to be reminded that they may collect duties on this slave-trade, and an early answer is desired in order that the arrangements for the new commerce may be pushed forward.(18)