SECOND VOYAGE PLANNED.

Meanwhile the preparations were being made for a second voyage to be
undertaken by the admiral. After the arrival of the apostolic bulls, and
before the departure of Columbus from Barcelona, the nine Indians brought
by him were baptized. Here, parenthetically, we may take note of something
which, if the fact did correspond with what the Spaniards thought about
it, would, indeed, be notable. One of the Indians, after being baptized,
died, and was, we are told,[Herrera] the first of that nation, according
to pious belief, who entered heaven.

We cannot help thinking of the hospitable and faithful Guacanagari, and
imagining that, if his race had been like him, some one might already have
reached the regions of the blessed. I do not, however, refer to this
passage of Herrera for its boldness or its singularity, but because it
brings before us again the profound import attached to baptism in those
times, and may help to account for many seeming inconsistencies in the
conduct of the Spaniards to the Indians.


COLONIAL DEPARTMENT.

In the conduct, however, of Ferdinand and Isabella towards the Indians
there was nothing equivocal, but all that they did showed the tenderness
and religious care of these monarchs for their new subjects. A special
department for the control of colonial affairs was placed under the charge
of Juan de Fonseca, an eminent ecclesiastic who was high in the royal
favour, and on whom was eventually conferred the title of Patriarch of the
Indies. But, unfortunately for the poor savages whose fate he was now to