It is impossible to reflect upon this habit of the Admiral without realizing that, however friendly and hospitable the natives had shown themselves at first, the impression soon made upon their minds must have been one of the utmost repugnance and enmity. To indulge in any other supposition would be to suppose that the natives were not human beings. The captives seem for the most part to have been kindly treated, and they may not have manifested an unconquerable aversion to their captivity; but this unscrupulous policy of kidnapping the natives whenever opportunity offered, could not have been otherwise than disastrous to all friendly relations. It is impossible to conceive that the islanders were so devoid of all human sensibilities as to see with indifference their husbands and wives, their sons and daughters, stolen from them for the gratification of the lust and the cupidity of their visitors. Nor, aside from all moral considerations, on the part of the wisest historian of the time was there any failure to understand the disastrous consequences of such a policy. Las Casas was fully alive to all the political significance of this course of action. While this great moralist, whose nobility of character raises him far above all the other public men of his time, fully acquits Columbus of any wrong intent, he does not hesitate to indict him for initiating a policy that was the cause of all the crimes and disasters that ensued. The right to kidnap was of course resented by the natives. The consequence was a war of extermination. The sad fate of the colony of La Navidad can never be fully understood, for reasons which in due time we shall see; but it would have been strange indeed if men, endowed with even the feeblest attributes of human nature, had not been desirous of exterminating a race actuated by such a policy. The words of Las Casas are at once so judicious and so just that they ought not to be abridged. After speaking of the ardent desire of Columbus to bring as much profit as possible to Ferdinand and Isabella, he uses these admirable words:-- “For this cause the Admiral thought and watched and worked for nothing more than to contrive that there might come advantage and income to the sovereigns.... Ignoring that which ought not to be ignored concerning divine and natural right and the right judgment of reason, he introduced and commenced to establish such principles and to sow such seeds that there originated and grew from them such a deadly and pestilential herb, and one which produced such deep roots, that it has been sufficient to destroy and devastate all these Indies, without human power sufficing to impede or intercept such great and irreparable evils.” And then, with a charming discrimination and charity, the same benignant author continues,--