101 



GARY. 



CASAS, BARTHOLOMfi DE LAS. 



103 



thunder-storm arose, and it was reported that the emperor was killed 

 in his tent by the lightning : the servants upon this set fire to his 

 tent, and his body was consumed. His secretary Calpurnius however, 

 in a letter which he wrote to the prefect of Rome, said that the empe- 

 ror, who was already ill, died during the storm. But tha strongest 

 suspicions rested upon Arrius Aper, prefect of the prsetorium, the 

 sam who soon after killed Numerianus. Carus reigned about seven- 

 teen months. He was succeeded by his "two sons, Carinus and 

 Numerianus. 



GARY. [FALKLAND, LORD.] 



GARY, REV. HENRY FRANCIS, was born at Birmingham in 

 1772, and was entered a commoner of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1790; 

 having however already commenced author by the publication of 'An 

 Irregular Ode to General Elliott" in 1787, and of a 4to pamphlet of 

 'Sonnets and Odes' in 1788. While at the university he devoted 

 much of his time to the study of Italian, French, and English litera- 

 ture, as well as of Greek and Latin. Having taken his degree of 

 M.A. in 1796, he was in 1797 presented by the Marquis of Anglesey 

 to the vicarage of Bromley Abbot's, in Staffordshire, worth 187J. a 

 year, with a residence. The s:\me year he published ' An Ode to 

 General Kosciusko." In 1S05 appeared his translation of the ' Inferno' 

 of Dante in English blank verse, accompanied with the original Italian ; 

 and in 1314 his entire version of the ' Ijivin-i Commedia.' It was 

 some years however before this work, to which Gary principally owes 

 hia literary reputation, attracted much attention. It was first brought 

 into general notice by Coleridge, who spoke of it with warm praise in 

 his lectures at the Royal Institution, and who is said to have become 

 acquainted with it and with Gary himself about the same time. 

 Ultimately its merits were generally acknowledged, and the author 

 had the satisfaction of bringing out a fourth edition of it before his 

 death. It is not only unusually careful and exact, but deserves the 

 praise of very considerable force and expressiveness. It must however 

 be considered as a defect detracting materially from its claim to be 

 regarded as a faithful representation of the ' Divina Commedia ' that 

 it is in blank verse : rhyme is an essential element of the Gothic 

 spirit and character of Dante's poetrv. Gary afterwards produced 

 verse translations of the 'Birds' of Aristophanes, and of the 'Odes' 

 of Pindar; series of 'Lives of English Poets,' in continuation of 

 Johnson's, and another of ' Lives of Early French Poets," in the 

 ' London Magazine ; ' besides editions of the works of Pope, Cowper, 

 Milton, Thomson, and Young. In 1828 he was appointed assistant 

 librarian in the British Museum, but he resigned that situation in 

 1832, on the claim that he and his friends conceived he had to the 

 office of keeper of the printed books being passed over in favour of 

 another person. He some years afterwards received a pension of 200i 

 a year from the crown, which he enjoyed till his death, which took 

 place at his bouse in Charlotte-street, Bloomabury, 1 4th of August, 1844. 

 lie was interred on the 21st in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey. 



(Memoir of the Rev. ff. F. Cory; with Literary Journal and Lettert, 

 by his son, the Rev. H. Gary.) 



CA'SAS, BARTHOLOMfi DE LAS, was born at Seville of a noble 

 family in 1474. When he was about twenty ho accompanied his 

 father, who embarked with Colombo in his second voyage to the West 

 Indies. On his return to Spain he entered holy orders and became 

 curate of a pariah. After some years he went back to Hispaniola, 

 where he found the Indian population cruelly oppressed by the 

 Spaniards. By the system of ' repartimientos,' enacted by order of 

 King Ferdinand of Aragon, and enforced by the governor Albuquerque, 

 the unfortunate. natives were distributed like cattle into lots of so 

 many hundred heads each, and sold to the highest bidders, or given 

 away to courtiers and other men of rank in Spain, who by their 

 agents sold them to the colonists. The mortality became so great 

 among these unhappy beings, who were naturally of a weak constitu- 

 tion, that out of 60,000 Indians, who were on the island of Hispaniola 

 in 1508, only 14,000 remained in 1516. The Dominican friars were 

 the only persons who loudly disapproved of this system ; the secular 

 clergy and even the Franciscans took part with the colonists. Las 

 Casas sided with the Dominicans, and finding that Albuquerque was 

 deaf to all then: remonstrances, he sailed for Spain, asked and obtained 

 an audience of Ferdinand, to whom he made such a dreadful picture 

 of the fatal effects of the repartimientos, that the king's conscience 

 became alarmed, and he promised Las Casas that he would remedy 

 the abuse. But Ferdinand died soon after, and Charles I., commonly 

 called Charles V., succeeded him. The minister Ximenes, who 

 governed Spain in the absence of the young king, listened with 

 favour to Las Casas' remonstrances, and appointed three superintend- 

 ents from among the Hieronymites, an order which enjoyed great 

 consideration in Spain, with instructions to proceed to the West 

 Indies, and examine the matter on the spot, and with full authority 

 to decide finally upon the great question of the freedom or slavery of 

 the Indians. He sent with them a jurist of the name of Zuazo, who 

 had a great reputation for learning and probity, and lastly, he added 

 Las Casas to the communion with the title of 'Protector of the 

 Indian*.' The commission proceeded to Hispaniola in 1517. After 

 listening to the statements of both parties, colonists and Dominicans, 

 or friend* of the Indians, and having also examined the physical and 

 intellectual condition of the natives themselves, the Hierouymites came 

 to the conclusion that the Indians would not work unless obliged to 



do so ; that their mental capacities were much lower than those of 

 Europeans, and could not be stimulated to exertion or be made to 

 'ollow any moral or religious rules, except by authority ; and there- 

 'ore they decided that the system of repartimientos must continue for 

 ;he present at least, but at tho sama time they enforced strict regu- 

 ations as to the manner in which the Indians should be treated by 

 ;heir masters, in order to prevent as much as possible any abuse of 

 sower on the part of the latter. Las Casas, not satisfied with this 

 decision, set off again for Spain to appeal to Charles V. himself, who 

 came about that time from Flanders to visit his Spanish dominions. 

 The question was discussed in the king's council, and as the difficulty of 

 cultivating the colonies without the repartimientos was the great 

 objection, Las Casas, it is said, observed that the African blacks, who 

 were already imported into the West Indies, were a much stronger 

 race than the Indians, and might make a good substitute. This sug- 

 gestion has been made, by most writers on American affairs, a ground 

 of reproach against the memory of Las Casas. It ought to be observed 

 however that the fact of the suggestion rests solely upon the authority 

 of Herrera, who wrote thirty years after the death of Las Casas. 

 The writers contemporary with Las Casas, and.Sepulveda himself, his 

 determined antagonist, are silent upon this point. (Grdgoire, ' Apologie 

 de B. de Las Casas,' in the fourth volume of the ' Memoirs of Moral 

 and Political Science of the French Institute.') It is certain, and 

 both Herrara, and after him Robertson, acknowledge it, that, as early 

 as 1503, negro slaves had been imported into America, and that in 

 1511 a large importation took place by King Ferdinand's authorisation. 

 The Portuguese seem to have been the first Europeans who traded in 

 black slaves. A negro was found to do as much work aa four Indians. 

 Charles V. granted a licence to one of his Flemish courtiers to import 

 4000 blacks into the West Indies. The courtier sold his licence to 

 some Genoese speculators for 25,000 ducnts, and the Genoese then 

 began to organise a regular slave-trade between Africa and the New 

 World. But the price of the blacks was so high that few of the 

 colonists could avail themselves of this supply, and consequently the 

 slavery of the Indians was perpetuated for a long time alter, until 

 the race became extinct on most of the islands. 



Las Casas, unable to obtain the deliverance of the Indians through 

 his oral remonstrances, resorted to his pen. He wrote 1st, ' Tratado 

 sobre la materia de loa Indios que se ban hecho esclavos por los Castel- 

 lanos ; ' 2nd, ' Brevissiina relacion de la destruycion de las Indins Occi- 

 dentales por los CasteUanos,' in which he gives a frightful account of 

 the acts of oppression and barbarity committed by the conquerors; 

 3rd, 'Remedies por la reformacion de las Indias;' 4th, 'Treynta pro- 

 posiciones pertenecientes al derecho que la Yglesia y los priucipes 

 Cristianos tienen sobre los Infieles, y el titulo que los Reyes de Castilla 

 tienen a las Indias Occidentales.' (Navarrete, ' Coleccion de los 

 Viages y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Espanoles, &c.,' 

 2 vols. 4to, Madrid, 1825, in which the author treats at length of Las 

 Casas.) 



Las Casas, despairing of effecting any good for the Indians in the 

 Spanish settlements, formed the project of a new colony to be estab- 

 lished on the recently-discovered tierra firma, or mainland, and to be 

 managed according to his own views, which were afterwards realised 

 in a great measure by the Jesuits in their settlements of Paraguay. 

 Accordingly he obtained from Charles V. a grant of 300 miles along 

 the coast of Cumana. But before he set out he had to sustain ii 

 public disputation, in the presence of the king and council, against 

 Quevedo, bishop of Darien, who had lately returned from the West 

 Indies, and whose opinions concerning the Indians were diametrically 

 opposed to those of Las Casas. As usual in such cases, the contro- 

 versy did not clear up tho matter, and Charles, uncertain what to do, 

 confirmed his grant to Las Casas for the sake of experiment. But 

 before Las Casas could reach his destination, an expedition had sailed 

 from Puerto Rico under Diego Ocampo, for the purpose of invading 

 and plundering that very coast of Cumana which was intended by 

 Las Casas for his pacific settlement. The consequence was, that tho 

 remaining natives conceived such a horror against the Spaniards that 

 when Las Casas came to settle on the coast they attacked his settle- 

 ment and killed or drove away the settlers. Las Casas, crossed in all 

 his benevolent endeavours, and attacked by the sneers and reproaches 

 of the colonists, went back to Hispaniola, where he took refuge in tho 

 convent of the Dominicans, Whose order he entered in 152:2. Some 

 years after he returned to Spain, and made a fresh appeal to Charles V. 

 in favour of the oppressed Indians. He then met an antagonist in 

 Doctor Gincs de Sepulveda, who had written a book in defence of the 

 slavery and destruction of the Indians, taking for his argument the 

 treatment of the Canaanites by the Hebrews. Las Casas replied to 

 him, and an account of the whole controversy is contained in tho 

 work which was published in 1552, styled ' Disputa entre el Obispo 

 Fray Bartholomd de Las Casas y al Doctor Ginee de Sepulveda sobro 

 la justicia de las conquistas de las Indias.' Las Casas had meantime 

 been appointed Bishop of Chiapa, in tho newly-conquered empire of 

 Mexico. After remaining for many years in his diocese, ever intent 



bishopric, 



bore among both natives and Spaniards in the New World the names 



of Father and Protector of the Indians. 



