He told his wrongs, and he prayed for just judgment, "not
as a ruler of an ordered land where obtain old, known,
long-followed laws, and where indeed disorder might cry
`Weakness and Ill-doing!' But I should be judged rather
as a general sent to bring under government an enemy people,
numerous, heathen, living in a most difficult, unknown and
pathless country. And to do this I had many good men,
it is true, but also a host that was not good, but was factious,
turbulent, sensual and idle. Yet have I brought these strange
lands and naked peoples under the Sovereigns, giving them
the lordship of a new world. What say my accusers? They
say that I have taken great honors and wealth and nobility
for myself and my house. Even they say, O my friend!
that from the vast old-and-new and fairest land that I have
lately found, I took and kept the pearls that those natives
brought me, not rendering them to the Sovereigns. God
judge me, it is not so! Spain becometh vastly rich, and
the head of the world, and her Sovereigns, lest they should
scant their own nobility, give nobility, place and wage to
him who brought them Lordship here. It is all! And out
of my gain am I not pledged to gather an army and set it
forth to gain the Sepulchre? Have I fallen, now and again,
in all these years in my Government, into some error? How
should I not do so, being human? But never hath an error
been meant, never have I wished but to deal honestly and
mercifully with all, with Spaniards and with Indians, to
serve well the Sovereigns and to advance the Cross.
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