[179] The whole population of New Spain in 1810 is estimated by Don Fernando Navarro y Noriega at about 6,000,000; of whom more than half were pure Indians. The author had the best means for arriving at a correct result. See Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. i. pp. 318, 319, note. [180] Rel. Quarta, ap. Lorenzana, pp. 391-394.--The petition of the Conquerors was acceded to by the government, which further prohibited “attorneys and men learned in the law from setting foot in the country, on the ground that experience had shown they would be sure by their evil practices to disturb the peace of the community.” (Herrera, Hist. general, dec. 3, lib. 5, cap. 2.) These enactments are but an indifferent tribute to the character of the two professions in Castile. [181] Toribio, Hist. de los Indios, MS., Parte 1, cap. 1.--Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS. [My views of the character of the Spanish missionaries find favor with Señor Alaman, who warmly eulogizes the spirit of self-sacrifice and the untiring zeal which they showed in propagating the gospel among the natives: “El Sr. Prescott hace de los misioneros el justo aprecio que sus virtudes merecieron, y sus elogios son tanto mas recomendables, cuanto que sus opiniones religiosas parece deberian hacerle contrario á ellos. En efecto, solo la iglesia católica ha producido misioneros inflamados de un verdadero celo religioso, que los ha hecho sacrificar su vida por la propagacion de la religion y en beneficio de la humanidad.” Conquista de Méjico (trad. de Vega), tom. ii. p. 255. Mr. Gallatin, also, in his “Notes on the Semi-civilized Nations of America,” pays a hearty tribute to the labors of the Roman Catholic missionaries in the New World: “The Dominican monks, though inquisitors and relentless persecutors in Spain, became in America the protectors of the Indians.... The praise must be extended to all the Catholic priests, whether Franciscans or Jesuits, monks or curates. All, from the beginning, were, have ever been, and continue to be, the protectors and the friends of the Indian race.” Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, i. 213.] [182] “Cuyo hecho del rotísimo y humilde recebimiento fué uno de los heroicos hechos que este Capitan hizo, porque fué documento para que con mayor fervor los naturales desta tierra viniesen á la conversion de nuestra fee.” (Camargo, Hist. de Tlascala, MS.--See also Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 171.) Archbishop Lorenzana falls nothing short of the Tlascalan historian in his admiration of the religious zeal of the great _Conquistador_, which, he assures us, “entirely overwhelms him, as savoring so much more of the apostolic missionary than of the soldier!” Lorenzana, p. 393, nota.