Then the monarchs were angry. "What authority from me has the admiral to give to any one my vassals!" exclaimed the queen. All who had thus been stolen from home and country, among whom were pregnant women and babes newly born, were ordered returned. And from that moment the sovereigns of Spain were the friends of the Indians. Not Isabella alone but Ferdinand, Charles, and Philip, and their successors for two hundred years with scarcely an exceptional instance, stood manfully for the rights of the savages—always subordinate however to their own fancied rights—constantly and determinately interposing their royal authority between the persistent wrong-doing of their Spanish subjects, and their defenceless subjects of the New World. Likewise the Catholic Church is entitled to the highest praise for her influence in the direction of humanity, and for the unwearied efforts of her ministers in guarding from cruelty and injustice these poor creatures. Here and there in the course of this narrative we find a priest carried away by the spirit of proselytism commit acts of folly and unrighteousness; and men announcing as church measures proceedings which when known in the mother country received the prompt condemnation of the church. These men and measures I shall not be backward to condemn. But it is with no small degree of pleasure that I record thus early in this history the noble attributes of the self-sacrificing Christian heroes who while preaching their faith to the savage endeavored to bridle as best they could the cupidity and cruelty of the Spanish adventurers who accompanied them. [Sidenote: LAWS RESPECTING THE ABORIGINES.] After the first invasions, in various quarters, aggressive warfare on the natives, even on obdurate heathen nations, was prohibited. In the extension of dominion that followed, the very word 'conquest' was forbidden to be employed, even though it were a conquest gained by fighting, and the milder term 'pacification' was substituted.[V-4] Likewise, after the first great land robberies had been committed, side by side with the minor seizures was in practice the regulation that enough of the ancient territory should be left each native community to support it comfortably in a fixed residence. The most that was required of the Indians was to abolish their ancient inhuman practices, put on the outward apparel of civilization, and as fast as possible adapt themselves to Christian customs, paying a light tax, in kind, nominally for protection and instruction. This doing, they were to be left free and happy. Such were the wishes of crown and clergy; for which both strove steadily though unsuccessfully until the object of their solicitude crumbled into earth.[V-5]