Nor, again, can we say that the end justified the means. Columbus never expected or desired to discover a new country. His motive in urging the support of the voyages was twofold. He desired, on the one hand, to bring back the wealth that would enable his sovereigns to conquer Jerusalem for Christianity; and, on the other, to acquire wealth and fame for himself. The only condition of success was the finding of vast amounts of gold. The reports of John de Mandeville and Marco Polo had filled his mind with confidence that the necessary gold existed and could be acquired, if only it could be found. Hence his restless activity. Never dreaming till the day of his death that the islands he had discovered were not off the coast of Asia, he thought himself not far away from the mines that had brought such wealth to Cipango and Cathay. Everything, therefore, was made to contribute to this fruitless search. No thoughtful person can read the original accounts of the four voyages without being impressed with the fact that he was constantly led on from one thing to another by the alluring reports of gold. This endless and fruitless quest was the cause of the worst features of his misgovernment. The gold mines stubbornly refused to reveal themselves. Recourse was then had to that pitiless system of _repartimientos_, or enforced labour, which everywhere threw the natives into despair. Then it was that, in the words of Las Casas, “The Admiral went over a great part of the island, making cruel war on all the kings and peoples who would not come into obedience.” Elsewhere the same great authority says: “In those days and months the greatest outrages and slaughter of people and depopulation of villages went on, because the Indians put forth all their strength to see if they could drive from their territories a people so murderous and cruel.” The original authorities prove beyond question that the policy was simply one of unqualified cupidity, cruelly and relentlessly enforced.