Note 914 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
This important tract continued long to be printed separately, both at home and abroad. I use a copy of it in double columns, Spanish and Italian, Venice, 1643, 12mo; but, like the rest, the Brevísima Relacion may be consulted in an edition of the Works of Las Casas by Llorente, which appeared at Paris in 1822, in 2 vols. 8vo, in the original Spanish, almost at the same time with his translation of them into French. It should be noticed, perhaps, that Llorente’s version is not always strict, and that the two new treatises he imputes to Las Casas, as well as the one on the Authority of Kings, are not absolutely proved to be his.
The translation referred to above appeared, in fact, the same year, and at the end of it an “Apologie de Las Casas,” by Grégoire, with letters of Funes and Mier, and notes of Llorente to sustain it,—all to defend Las Casas on the subject of the slave-trade; but Quintana, as we have seen, has gone to the original documents, and leaves no doubt, both that Las Casas once favored it, and that he altered his mind afterwards.