[s. B. DAWSON] THE LINES OF DEMARCATION 497 



was supposed to have touched. It is especially to he observed here that 

 if the supposed Bula de la extension y donacion of Sept. 35, 1493, h'ad 

 possessed the meaning attributed to it by Mr. Harrisse and others, it 

 would have obviated discussion ; for the regions in dispute would have 

 been conceded to Spain. From the fact that no such Bull was alluded 

 to in the tedious preliminary discussions, we may fairly argue that 

 either there was no such Bull or that it had no meaning beyond that 

 attributed to it in the previous chapter. 



Three envoys from each nation met at Tordesillas, and on June 7, 

 14:94, signed the famous treaty which during three hundred years was 

 a subject of dispute ; first, in the East, with reference to the Moluccas, 

 and then in the West, with reference to the boundary between Brazil 

 and the Spanish provinces in South America. The result was that 

 without mention of any Bulls a line of demarcation was fixed much 

 further westwards: But it Was not 270 leagues farther west, as often 

 stated, for the line of the Pope was a hundred leagues west of the 

 Azores, and the line of the treaty was 370 leagues west of the Cape 

 \''erde Islands, so that the six degrees of longitude between these two 

 groups must be deducted from the apparent additional extension. The 

 treaty was confirmed twelve years later by Pope Julius IL, on January 

 24, 1506. Then the treaty line was legally substituted for the line 

 of Alexiander VI.; though, in fact, no other line than the treaty line has 

 been found on any map ; even on those made as early as 1501-2. It 

 will therefore be seen that the division of the world into two parts was 

 a development of the treaty of Tordesillas, and that this "arrogant pre- 

 " sumption" — the cause of so much indignant writing — is not properly 

 laid to the charge of Pope Alexander. 



Much of the literature on this subject would lead the general 

 reader to suppose that the Bulls of concession to Spain (and Portugal 

 were a mass of pretentious and contradictory documents issued from 

 time to time on no settled plan. On the contrary they will be found 

 consistent with each other throughout the series, and from the first to 

 the last, the principle of a primary right by discovery is a key to their 

 true interpretation. They are sometimes diffuse as are tlie legal docu- 

 ments of other courts on account of the technicalities with which they 

 9re drawn. It is misleading to associate with them the least notion of 

 infallibility, as if they touched upon any question of faith or morals. 

 They were in fact decisions of a court of appeal. Every one of them 

 was issued upon a petition by one power or the other — there were only 

 two nations then engaged in discovery — and the rights of both were 

 considered with care. The last of the series, that of Leo X., ISTov. 3, 

 1514, in reaffirming all the grants to Portugal, did not imply that these 



