Could an all-sea route to these islands be discovered then would the fabled wealth of India and far Cathay fall into the lap of Europe without tribute paid to the robber Turks.

The struggle for the discovery and conquest of new lands was then between Spain and Portugal. England, the mother to be of empires, had not yet awakened to the possibilities of the future. The seas that washed her island home still formed her boundaries. For the spacious times of great Elizabeth, with its bold buccaneer leaders, she was yet to wait for half a century.

In the meatime Prince Henry the Navigator was devoting his energies to the extension of geographical knowledge and the development of the commerce of Portugal. The navigators who were soon to sail to the East and West Indies and lay the foundations of a great colonial system were being trained and developed in the trade on the coast of Africa.

The discoveries of Columbus placed a new world in the possession of the Spaniards. Before the end of the sixteenth century the people of two small countries on the Iberian Peninsula, through whose veins flowed the vigorous blood of youth, had extended their sway over all the newly-found lands of the globe. Conflict between them had become inevitable. Portugal was watchful of her monopoly of the African trade, and Spain was dreaming of a world-wide colonial empire.

Both appealed to the accepted arbitrator, and Pope Alexander VI generously divided the waters and new lands of the universe between the two ambitious claimants. The famous demarcation bulls drew a line from pole to pole through the Atlantic Ocean. The existing rights of Portugal to the east of the line were confirmed, while Spain was authorized to take possession of all unknown, unoccupied heathen lands to the west thereof.

The future of the Philippines was determined by these papal bulls and the subsequent Treaty of Tordesillas. Had not the bulls been issued the islands would inevitably have fallen into the

2 See the life of this remarkable prince by C. Raymond Beasley (London and New York, 1895); and an article by Prof. Bourne, entitled, "Prince Henry the Navigator," in Annual Rept. Am. Hist. Ass'n (1893), p. 112.

hands of the energetic Dutch. The voyage of Magellan and the discovery of the new islands were the logical results of the establishment of the demarcation lines.

Several bulls were issued during the year following the discovery of America by Columbus, the apparent purpose being to secure to Spain the new lands which her enterprise had found, while reserving to Portugal the rewards of her enterprise in the East. The world of waters, islands and lands were to be divided between the faithful sons of the Church, Ferdinand of Castile and John of Portugal.

By the first of three bulls3 the Pope granted to Spain the countries which Columbus had recently discovered and such as her navigators hoped to discover in the West. And this was done "because of all works the most agreeable to divine Majesty is that the Christian religion should be exalted and spread everywhere; that the salvation of the human soul should be secured in all countries, and that barbarous nations should be subjugated and converted to the Catholic faith."

On the same day there was issued a sort of abridgment of this bull which recited the same matter more clearly and concisely. The previously granted rights of Portugal in her discoveries were carefully protected and the rights of Spain in her new lands were defined in the same terms. It has been suggested, Harrisse thinks with good reason, that something thereupon happened in diplomatic circles, as on the following day another bull was issued which determined the Spanish and Portuguese rights by drawing a line north and south through the Atlantic Ocean one hundred leagues west and south of the Azores and of Cape Verde. All new unoccupied lands to the west and south of this line were to belong to Spain.*

But as it was possible that while voyaging toward the west or south the Spanish captains might land or touch in eastern waters and there discover islands or mainlands that belonged

3 Dated May 3, 1493.

These bulls and the Treaty of Tordesillas are printed in full in B. & R., I, pp. 97 et seq. See also Harrisse's Dip. Hist. of America, and Bourne's Essays in Historical Criticism, p. 13.

to India, the Pope, as further evidence of his good will, by a bull dated September 25, 1493, extended the Spanish grant so that it included "all islands and mainlands whatsoever that are found and to be found, discovered and to be discovered, that are or were, or seem to be in the route by sea or land to the west or south but are now recognized as being in the waters of the west or south and east and India."

King John of Portugal was much dissatisfied with the arrangement effected by the various papal bulls. According to his interpretation of the existing treaty between Spain and Portugal, the former had resigned to Portugal the entire field of oceanic discovery, excepting only the Canary Islands. A boundary line only one hundred leagues west of the Azores did not seem to him to allow sufficient sea room for the Portuguese sailors who were engaged in African voyages.

The Pope declined to make any further changes and war seemed imminent. But Spain was disposed to make reasonable concessions, particularly as Columbus had estimated the distance from the Canary Islands to the new islands as nine hundred leagues. The principle of the papal bull was accepted by the rivals, but it was thought that a line drawn half-way between the Cape Verde Islands and the islands newly discovered by Columbus would effect a fair division of the waters and lands which were to be exploited and Christianized. The result was the Treaty of Tordesillas, whereby the line of demarcation was by agreement drawn three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, and this was duly ratified and confirmed by Pope Julius II in a bull promulgated July 24, 1506.

In neither the papal bulls nor the Treaty of Tordesillas is there anything to suggest that the demarcation line was intended to extend around the globe. The line was drawn north and south through the Atlantic Ocean, and Spain was given a free field to the west and Portugal to the east thereof. Should they meet on the other side of the globe it was evidently the intention that the usual rule of priority of discovery should detemine owner

ship. The idea that the Pope when he established the demarcation line intended to divide the world like an orange does not seem to have prevailed until a generation later.

The Portuguese reached India in 1498 and thirteen years later Malacca, in the Golden Chersonese, the great entrepôt of the spice trade, was occupied. The Moluccas Islands from whence the spices came were not discovered until 1512. It has been claimed that Magellan visited these islands with a Portuguese expedition, but it is more than probable that he obtained his information about them and the inspiration for his voyage from a certain Captain Serrao, who wrote enthusiastically to Magellan of a "world larger and richer than that discovered by Vasco da Gama." It is possible that Serrao by exaggerating the distance from Malacca to the Spice Islands suggested to Magellan the idea that these islands must be beyond the line of demarcation and hence within the Spanish portion of the globe. They could be reached therefore by sailing westward according to the original idea of Columbus.

Ferdinand Magellan had been badly treated by his sovereign. He is said, on doubtful authority, to have joined the Portuguese fleet which sailed for India in 1505, to have been present at the siege of Malacca and to have accompanied an expedition which discovered

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring
Their spicy drugs."

It is more than probable that he secured his information with reference to the Moluccas from his friendly correspondent. He had served in the wars in Africa and received a wound that rendered him permanently lame. Unfriendly persons secured the ear of the king and made him believe that Magellan was shamming lameness. Having lost the royal favor and seeing no prospect for employment, Magellan formally renounced his allegiance to Portugal and became a naturalized Spaniard. He now 5 Harrisse, Diplomatic History, p. 64. Bourne, B. & R., I, p. 24. • Paradise Lost, Book II.

appealed to Charles for aid in the enterprise which was to "force a passage such as fancy ne'er conceived."

The importance of the idea that the demarcation line extended around the globe, and that the Moluccas were within the Spanish limitations, was perfectly clear to Magellan and also to Haro, who was his financial backer. Transylvanus says that, "They showed Cæsar that though it was not yet quite sure whether Malacca was within the confines of the Spaniards or the Portuguese, because as yet nothing of the longitude had been clearly proved, it was quite plain that the great gulf and the people of Sinae lay within the Spanish boundary. This was held to be most certain-that the islands which they called the Moluccas, from which all spices are produced and are exported to Malacca, lay within the Spanish western division, and that it was possible to sail there; and that spices could be brought then to Spain more easily and at less expense than they came direct from their native place."

8

Las Casas, who was about the court when Magellan presented his plan to the king, gives a graphic account of what occurred. Magellan, he says, "had a well-painted globe on which the whole world was depicted, and on it he indicated the route he proposed to take, saving that the strait was left purposely blank so that none should anticipate him. And on that day and at that hour I was in the office of the High Chancellor when the Bishop brought it and showed the High Chancellor the voyage which was proposed; and speaking with Magellan, I asked him what way he planned to take, and he answered that he intended to go by Cape Saint Marry, which we call the Rio de la Platte, and from thence to follow the coast up until he hit upon the Strait. But suppose you do not find any strait by which you can go into the sea? He replied that if he did not find any strait he would go the way the Portuguese took." Las Casas adds, "This Ferda

7 "A Lusian

Who being greatly by his King agrieved
Shall force a passage fancy ne'er conceived."

8 B. & R., I, p. 28.

Camoens' The Lusiads, Canto X.