498 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



rights had been abrogated. The change in the location of the line had 

 been homologated ]\y Julius TT, and that remained as established by 

 the treaty. It has ri'inained, as appears in the first part of this pap-^;-, 

 to be cited in the Venezuelan argument, and Mr. Bourne is in error in 

 ?u|)])o.«ing that it was abrogated by the Bull of Leo X. and the right by 

 discovery substituted then. The right by discovery and occupation is 

 8n inheritance from the Roman civil law and existed all the while. 

 ]t was the real law running under all the Bulls. The form of donation 

 was transitory and superficial. 



The line of the treaty was an arbitrary line, based on no attempt 

 at a rational or scientific principle. It was a mere compromise and it 

 is worthy of remark that Columbus, in the deed of entail made at 

 Seville (Feb, 21, 1498), as well as in his last will, ignored the treaty 

 and cited the line of the Bull in its own terms. There was a stipula- 

 tion in the treaty that within ten months a joint- expedition should 

 measure off these leagues of western extension, from the Cape Verde 

 Islands to the dividing line, and if land were found the line was to be 

 marked by a tower or pyramid. That expedition never sailed. Tlie 

 coast of America was soon recognized as a bar to the Eastern Indies 

 and the Portuguese pressed on their discoveries and conquests to the 

 farthest East, relieved from the apprehension of interference from 

 Spain. 



The reivpLi)! El Cano, Magellan's lieutenant, in 1521, by way of 

 the Cape oafeoÇd Hope, again awakened the Portuguese from their 

 dreams of monopoly and showed them that their success in shifting the 

 line westwards on the Atlantic was likely to lose them the Spice Islands 

 (Moluccas) in the Pacific. How the idea of continuing the line round 

 the globe first arose does not clearly appear. It was not in the Bull 

 nor is it expressly in the treaty ; but in the negotiations which arose 

 immediately upon the return of El Cano, it was taken for granted by 

 nil a? if it existed by necessary implication in both documents while 

 in fact no terminus ad quern can be found in either. 



Collisions between the Spanish and Portuguese in the far East 

 began to grow sharp and threatened to bring on war when a convention, 

 known as the "Junta of Badajoz," assembled at that city on April 11, 

 1524, to decide upon the partition of the world between the two powers, 

 for no others were considered in the matter. Sebastian Cabot was 

 there as an expert pilot for Spain. He could have told them, and per- 

 haps did tell them, that the Hag of England had been already planted 

 on the coast of the western continent. If he did tell them of Baccal- 

 laos, no record remains of it. Feman Columbus was there also, and 

 El Cano and Stephen Gomez, and Nuno Gania, and Diego Ribeiro, 



