Toward the natives Columbus seems not to have been actuated by any motives of cruelty. He is not to be harshly judged, moreover, if his methods were simply those of the fifteenth rather than those of the nineteenth century. But human nature is ever essentially the same, and it is therefore easy to understand the history of the change that rapidly came over the spirit of the natives. Immediately after he arrived at the islands, Columbus took a number of the natives by force, and kept them upon the ship. On the 12th day of November he writes: “Yesterday a canoe came to the ship with six young men; five of them came on board, whom I ordered to be detained, in order to have them with me. I then sent ashore to one of the houses and took seven women and three children; this I did that the Indians might tolerate their captivity better with their company.” In the same connection the Admiral adds: “These women will be of great help to us in acquiring their language, which is the same throughout all these countries, the inhabitants keeping up a communication among the islands by means of their canoes.” Again, on the 14th of January, only two days before taking final leave, Las Casas says that, “wishing to make prisoners of some Indians, he intended to despatch a boat in the night to visit their houses for this purpose; but the wind blowing strong from the east and northeast occasioned a rough sea, which prevented it.” On the following day he says: “There came four young Indians on board the caravel, where they gave so good an account to the Admiral of the island to the east that he determined to take them along with him.”