in 1502, when he went in the train of Nicholas de Ovando, the new governor of St. Domingo. Here he had a near view of the proceedings of his countrymen in conquering and colonizing the neighbouring islands and mainland, and of the horrible cruelties which they practised upon the unoffending aborigines, especially after the death of Isabella in 1504. In 1509 the island of Jamaica was laid waste with fire and sword, and the population, amounting to six hundred thousand souls, was reduced to less than two thousand. In 1511, when he was in Cuba, he was an eye-witness of the atrocities of Velasquez, and was able to save by his earnest intercessions one-and-twenty poor sufferers from being thrown into the flames. He had taken orders the preceding year in St. Domingo, and he now settled in Cuba as parish priest of the new colony, having claimed and obtained the right of extending his spiritual care to the natives, by whom he was greatly beloved, and who requited his noble and self-sacrificing zeal in their behalf by calling him their protector and their father, and by yielding an obedience to his wishes and counsels which they refused to the threats and commands of armed oppressors. He laboured in the same spirit in Cumana in 1521; in St. Domingo in 1524, where he joined the order of the dominicans; in Nicaragua in 1525, where he founded a dominican cloister; and afterwards in Guatemala, Peru, and Mexico, which he successively visited as a missionary. Everywhere he brought over the bishops and clergy to his humane and liberal views—everywhere he gained the Indians to Christ by the power of persuasion and love—and everywhere he either prevailed with his countrymen, by the force of his eloquence, to deal justly and mercifully with the conquered peoples, or visited their hard-hearted cruelties with the spiritual censures of the church. Charles V. showed his sense of the value of such a ministry by offering him the rich bishopric of Cuzco in Peru, but Las Casas declined it, and accepted in lieu of it the poor see of Chiapa, where he hoped to be more useful, though less rich. But it was inevitable that a work and mission like his, directed against the selfishness and cruel injustice of conquerors and colonists, should stir up, everywhere and as long as he lived, the most angry opposition, and that this hostility should involve him in great and ever-recurring troubles. Loud complaints were made against his proceedings from time to time, and he was again and again denounced to the emperor as a disturber of the public peace and an unfaithful subject of the crown. To defend himself against such attacks, as well as to renew his own complaints against the cruelty and oppression of the colonists, he was obliged to undertake numerous voyages to Spain, and to appear personally before the emperor or his ministers. Twelve times in all did he cross the Atlantic on these self-imposed embassies of humanity, and on all occasions, though powerfully opposed, with more or less success. His last voyage was undertaken in his seventy-seventh year, and being unable at such an advanced age to return to America, he resigned his bishopric in 1551, and retired to end his days at Valladolid. In 1556 he was still able to plead for his beloved Indians before Philip II., the new king of Spain; and his last work on the same subject was printed only two years before his death, which took place at Madrid on the 31st of July, 1566. His writings were numerous, and a collection of the most of them was published in 1552; of which a French translation by J. A. Llorente appeared in Paris, in 1823, in two vols. His principal work was "Brevissima Relacion," &c., containing a short history of the Spanish conquests, which was translated into several languages, and made a deep impression upon the mind of Europe. His larger history of the same events remains in MS., in which the narrative is brought down to 1520, and of which the historian Herrera has made diligent use. Some doubts were thrown upon the trustworthiness of Las Casas as a narrator by the earlier historians of America, including Raynal and Robertson; but later writers, such as Prescott, deem him worthy of entire credit in all matters which fell under his own observation, though his enthusiastic advocacy of the cause of the aborigines disposed him to be too easy of belief in what was reported to him by others, either to the advantage of the oppressed or to the disadvantage of their oppressors. It has been usual also to speak of him as the first who counselled the introduction of negro slavery into Spanish America. This is a mistake. That wicked system had been begun before he expressed any approval of it; he gave that approval only to save the American Indians from being reduced en masse to bondage, and he lived to see and acknowledge the unjustifiableness of purchasing the freedom of some by the enforced slavery of others.—P. L.
LAS CASES, Emmanuel-Augustin Dieudonné, Marquis de, a French historian, one of the companions of Napoleon at St. Helena, was born near Revel in Languedoc, 1766, and died at Passy-sur-Seine, 15th May, 1842. He first entered the navy, and was present at the siege of Gibraltar. At the revolution he took the side of his order, and was one of the first to emigrate. He came to England, and served in the expedition to Quiberon. He returned to London, supporting himself by giving lessons, and by the publication of an "Atlas, Historical and Geographical," which was very successful. He vainly tried to procure employment under the empire until 1809, when he entered Bernadotte's army as a volunteer. Napoleon soon found out his good qualities, and made him his chamberlain, created him a count of the empire in 1811, and employed him in inspecting hospitals, prisons, naval ports, &c. In 1814 he was faithful to the emperor, and would sign no document in his capacity of member of council of state for depriving Napoleon of the throne. After Waterloo he would not quit the emperor, but entreated to be allowed to share his fortunes. He acted as the emperor's mouth-piece in the negotiations on board the Bellerophon, and with his eldest son followed the illustrious exile to the island prison, sparing no effort to alleviate the pains of his captive master. At night he jotted down the conversation of the day, and to that we are indebted for a more intimate knowledge of the thoughts of the great emperor. In 1816 he was sent away from St. Helena, on account of a letter in which he expressed himself too strongly, not for the facts, but for the governor, on the treatment of Napoleon. After remaining some time at the Cape, he came to Europe, and under Louis Philippe's government was member of the chamber of deputies for St. Denis. His work is entitled "Memorial de St. Helène, ou Journal ou se trouve consigné, jour par jour, ce qu'a dit et fait Napoleon pendant dix-huit mois." He also wrote memoirs of his own life.—P. E. D.
LASCO, Johannes à, or more properly Laski, a distinguished reformer, was born at Warsaw in 1499 of a noble family. He had an uncle, John, archbishop of Gnesen, and eminent both as a statesman and a writer, who died in 1531. The subject of this notice received his early education in private, and about 1524 set out with a view to visit the principal seats of learning in the Netherlands, France, and Italy. On this tour he made the acquaintance of some of the leading friends of the Reformation. Probably he had no intention of abandoning the Romish church, and was led by motives of curiosity and partial sympathy to confer with Erasmus at Louvain, with Luther and Melancthon at Wittenberg, and with Zwingle at Basle. When he had been absent two years he returned home, and in 1526 was provost at Gnesen, as he was afterwards at Lenezyc. Some years later he was nominated to two bishoprics in succession, but his religious convictions compelled him to decline them; and after laying before the king an explanation of his reasons, he abandoned his family, fortune, and country for the sake of liberty of conscience. At Basle he stood by his friend Erasmus, who then lay upon his deathbed, and who bequeathed to À Lasco a portion of his library. Subsequently he resided at Louvain, where he married. In 1540 he went to Emden, where he remained in comparative privacy three years, after which he accepted the office of preacher, and superintendent of the churches in that district. To him East Friesland is indebted for the establishment of protestantism on the principles of the Swiss reformers. He was invited to England by Cranmer in 1548, and on his arrival spent six months in Lambeth palace, when he returned to Emden. But the spiritual wants of the foreign protestants in London led to negotiations, which ended in his coming back, and founding the first church of foreigners in the metropolis of England. Edward VI. conceded to À Lasco and his colleagues the church of the Austin Friars, and appointed him the first superintendent. The labours of À Lasco were not confined to his office; he took part in compiling the Prayer Book and Articles of the Church of England, and in other important undertakings. In 1553, after the accession of Mary, he obtained permission to leave the country, and returned to the continent. After spending some time in Holland and Denmark, he settled again at Emden, which he left in 1556 to visit Poland. He died at Pinczow in Poland in 1560. Many of the facts of his life are uncertain, and few of his writings have come down to us; but from all that is known of the one and the other, it
