THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. 17 



away. The news of this incident occasioned great 

 consternation in the councils of the home govern- 

 ment ; and although the zeal of the governor of St. 

 Domingo was duly commended, it was gravely sug- 

 gested that the wiser course would have been to have 

 siezed the vessel and detained the crew, as it was 

 now much to be feared that the sailors would not 

 only, on their return to Europe, report their disco- 

 very, but teach others the route to the golden pos- 

 sessions of his Catholic .Majesty. This brilliant 

 scheme of locking up the two Americas as " treasure 

 trove " for the especial use and enjoyment of the 

 finders not succeeding, it was determined to fortify 

 the imaginary right of the monarchs of Spain to the 

 undisturbed sovereignty and possession of countries 

 of which no European had yet surveyed a hundredth 

 part of the coast line, by the authority of the church. 

 In 1524, Pope Alexander VI., the father of the Bor- 

 gias— Lucretia and Caesar— issued a bull, solemnly 

 conferring the Americas, or New Indies, as they 

 were termed, with all adjacent islands, on the king 

 of Spain and his successors. This gift of the head 

 of the church, those monarchs applied all the power 

 they could command to enforce and maintain, and 

 they consequently soon found themselves in collision 

 with thousands of the hot and adventurous spirits of 

 Europe, who, despite the spiritual and temporal 

 thunders wielded by the Spanish monarchs, resolved 

 at all hazards on securing a share of the glittering 

 prize which the genius and daring of the navigators 

 of various climes had brought within the reach of a 

 2* 



