In conformity with the King’s order that his answer to Las Casas should be presented in writing the Bishop of Darien prepared two statements, one of which set forth all the various abuses and the destruction caused by the Spaniards in that colony, while the other contained suggestions for remedying those evils; one of these remedies was the prohibition of the customary raids amongst the Indian tribes and the other was that the peaceable Indians should be induced to live in villages where they might be taught, and also pay some tribute to the Crown. The Bishop’s view of the lamentable state of things in the colony, his condemnation of the violent conduct of the Spaniards, and his opinion that it was urgent to introduce a new system for regulating the relations between the colonists and natives seem not to have differed from those of Las Casas himself, and both the corrective measures he proposed met with the latter’s hearty approval. These memorials were first read by the Bishop to the Chancellor and M. Laxao, both of whom were highly satisfied to discover such unexpected conformity with the representations of their friend the clerigo. When asked by them what he thought of Las Casas’s projects, the Bishop replied that he found them excellent and most just. This singular conversion of the Bishop of Darien from a formidable opponent into a supporter, delighted Las Casas, who, when the Chancellor showed him the two memorials, asked for a pen that he too might sign them, saying: “Did I ever tell your lordship more than the Bishop has here admitted? What greater cruelties, murders, and destruction in that country have I ever reported to your lordship than these?” What influence worked upon Quevedo does not appear; whether he perceived that the King looked with sympathy on the enthusiastic Las Casas and that the latter was high in favour with the important Flemish group at Court and therefore sure to carry his point, and so decided, as a practised courtier, to pass over to the winning side, or whether under his choleric exterior there was a chord that responded to the sufferings of the obscure Indians in their miseries, and a sense of justice that was outraged by the rapacious cruelty of his countrymen, we have no means of knowing. Shortly afterwards he fell dangerously ill of a sickness which carried him off in three days. Las Casas was much impressed by his Christian end and by the fact that before he died he had been moved to testify to the true condition of things in the Indies, than which no other act on his part could have been a better preparation for death.