[s. E. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 189 



" of great solicitude on the part of the government, particularly when it 

 " was found to have bearing on political questions of great importance." 



Bearing this in mind, we will find it difficult to accept Mr. Harrisse's 

 denial that Spain "ever laid claim to the northeast coast of America." 

 My answer is that the Papal Bull of partition points to another conclu- 

 sion. Briefly, for 1 need not dwell long upon the point, Portugal as well 

 as Spain had made discoveries, and the Poj^e drew a line of demarcation 

 to define the limits of the two powers, or, as we should now say, of the 

 two spheres of influence. The line was afterwards shifted, by the treaty 

 of Tordesillas, between the two nations solely concerned. It eventually 

 happened that Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Brazil fell to Portugal, 

 and the rest of both continents to Spain, and Spain was directly inter- 

 ested in preventing all interlopers and in supporting Portugal. At the 

 time of Cabot's discovery, however, Spain did make a claim, which will 

 be found clearly stated in the warnings and letters of Puebla and Ayala 

 in 1497 and 1498. Ayala had been one of the commissioners to draw the 

 line of demarcation in the treaty of Tordesillas."" He had been talking 

 with the discoverer in person, and, with Cabot's map before him, be wrote 

 to Ferdinand that the land found belonged to Spain. Q'he Baccalaoswas 

 soon after conceded to Portugal, and for that reason the earliest maps are 

 Portuguese, and show the voyages of Cortereal and his successors. 



All this is so clear that it seems to amount to a paradox to dispute it. 

 The Cantino map (see p. 165, ante) has preserved for us a graphic deline- 

 ation of the line of demarcation as it was supposed to exist in A, D. 1501-2. 

 The policy of Spain is shown by the maps which are based upon the 

 official map. On these maps the line of demarcation is laid down from 

 north to south — from Brazil to Newfoundland — and it cuts the coast of 

 North America a little east of Cape Breton. Such maps arc the two at 

 "Weimar. That of 1527, whether it be by P'ernan Columbus or by Nuno 

 Garcia de Toreno, is considered to be an official copy ; but the map of 

 1529 certainly is, as it purports to be, by Diego Eibero, and it shows the 

 Spanish flag to the west and the Portuguese to the east of the dividing 

 meridian. Eibero was cosmographer to the king, and such a map as he 

 has handed down to us all Cabot's official maps, made in Spain, of neces- 

 sity must have been. Eibero placed, on the Acadian coast, close to Cape 

 Breton, the words, Tiera de Estevâ Gomez, and claimed it as having been 

 discovered for Spain by Gomez in 1525. Mr. Harrisse, in commenting on 

 a map by Diego Guthierez in 1550, is astonished at finding that it knows 

 nothing of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and of Cartier's discoveries, which 

 six years previously had appeared in the Cabot map of 1544, for 

 Guthierez was a colleague of Cabot, and was appointed as his locum 

 tenens by Cabot when he went to England. This circumstance, however, 

 only brings out in stronger relief the fact that Spain did at that time lay 

 a claim to the whole territory of North America up to the line of demar- 

 cation, and that the official map was witness to it. 



