THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



Indies Spain entered on her career as a candidate for the 



The Bull of dominion of the world. To avoid an internecine struggle 



between Spain and Portugal, Pope Alexander VI, who 



was a Spaniard by birth, issued, in 1493, his famous Bull, 



whereby the world was divided by a line running from 



pole to pole a hundred leagues west of the Azores, and 



all newly discovered lands to east and west of this line 



assigned in absolute possession to the crowns of Portugal 



and Castile respectively. For the next half-century both 



Spain and Portugal were busy in consolidating and 



extending their domains, little disturbed by newer 



competitors. 



But the tale of the nations was not yet complete. 



Venice, Genoa, Portugal and Spain were to be followed 



by France and England in the race for the Far East. 



Italian Each of these latter countries, like Spain, owed its earliest 

 Navigators. . • r t i- • 



impulse to the genius of an Italian navigator. One land 



sent forth the masters of the Old World and the dis- 

 coverers of the New ; though they were never to enter 

 into their inheritance, they saw it with their eyes ; and 

 the beginnings of modern science, art, and civilisation are 

 John Cabot, the debt of the world to Italy. In 1497, John Cabot, a 

 citizen of Venice who had settled as a trader at Bristol, 

 having obtained letters patent from King Henry VII, 

 sailed with two ships out of Bristol and discovered the 

 coast of Labrador. As his was the first expedition to 

 reach the mainland of America, which Columbus never 

 set eyes on till a year later, much has been made in con- 

 troversy of the priority of the English claim. But indeed 

 in these timid beginnings nothing was further from the 

 purpose of England than to enter on a contest with other 

 powers for the possession of America. The success of 



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