EXPEDITION OF MANSON. 
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branch of their commerce, would be diverted into another chan¬ 
nel, and into one, which of all others they the most feared, as 
from the energy, perseverance, talent, nautical skill, and com¬ 
parative opulence of the English, they would have to contend 
with rivals of so formidable a character, that the result scarcely 
remained a matter of speculation or doubt. In this dilemma, 
the Portuguese had recourse to diplomacy and intrigue, and the 
triple crowned bigot of the Vatican was applied to, to see that 
the bull, which he had issued, granting the sovereignty of the 
Indian commerce to the Portuguese, should be religiously 
attended to by all true catholics, under the threat of excommu¬ 
nication, and the ban of the Holy Mother Church against all, 
and every one, who by any open or secret undertaking, or en¬ 
terprise, should attempt to despoil the Portuguese of those 
exclusive privileges, which the legitimate successor of St. Peter 
had granted to them. 
In those days, the ban of the Holy Mother Church, was not 
looked upon as so great a tom foolery, as many are inclined to 
regard it at the present period, and considering the degrading 
thraldom, in which the European states were then held by the 
papal see, it might naturally have been expected, that the most 
implicit obedience would have been paid to the mandate of his 
holiness; but the love of lucre, conquered over the threat of ex¬ 
communication, and the ban of the church kicked the beam, when 
put into the opposite scale with the golden treasures of India. A 
ship was privately fitted out in the port of Falmouth, avowedly for 
prosecuting some commercial undertaking in the newly dis¬ 
covered country of America, but the real aim was to discover if 
any communication existed between the Atlantic and Pacific, 
The command of the vessel, was entrusted to a person of the 
name of Manson, who had distinguished himself as the captain 
of a Venetian trader in the Mediterranean, and from whose 
skill and intrepidity, the most favourable results were to be 
expected. 
In those days, a priest was as inseparable a part of the lading 
of a ship, as an anchor or a cable; but Manson either from a 
secret conviction that a priest, under the peculiar circumstances 
