"The people here are simple in war-like matters... I could take them all with 50 men and subjugate them to my will."

"Here are great mines of gold and other metals."

"It was the Lord who put into my mind (I could feel His hand upon me) the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies."

"I am so grieved at their departure that I shall never cease to regret it."

"I recognized that they were people who would be better freed [from error] and converted to our Holy Faith by love than by force."