Opinion has been divided as to the original purpose of the expedition. As it turned out, it was thought best on all sides to say nothing of the inhuman and unlawful intention of capturing Indians for slaves. Hence, in the public documents, particularly in the petitions for recompense which invariably followed discoveries, pains is taken to state that it was a voyage of discovery, and prompted by the governor of Cuba. As in the Décadas Abreviadas de los Descubrimientos, Mendoza, Col. Doc. Inéd., viii. 5-54, we find that ‘El adelantado Diego Velazquez de Cuéllar es autor del descubrimiento de la Nueva España,’ so, in effect, it is recorded everywhere. Indeed, Bernal Diaz solemnly asserts that Velazquez at first stipulated that he should have three cargoes of slaves from the Guanaja Islands, and that the virtuous one hundred indignantly refused so to disobey God and the king as to turn free people into slaves. ‘Y desque vimos los soldados, que aquello que pedia el Diego Velazquez no era justo, le respondimos, que lo que dezia, no lo mandaua Dios, ni el Rey; que hiziessemos á los libres esclavos.’ Hist. Verdad., i. On the strength of which fiction, Zamacois, Hist. Méj., ii. 224, launches into laudation of the Spanish character. The honest soldier, however, finds difficulty in making the world believe his statement. Las Casas, Hist. Ind., iv.