Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/568

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onely granted that all that should be discovered from Orient to Occident should be the kings of Portingal, but also, that upon great censures no other Prince should discover but he. And if they did, all to bee the kings of Portingal. So he armed a fleete, and in the yeere 1497 were discovered the Islands of Calicut, from whence is brought all the spice be hath.

After this in the yere 1492, the kinge of Spaine willing to discover lands toward the Occident without making any such diligence, or taking licence of the king of Portingal, armed certaine carvels, and then discovered this India Occidental, especially two Islands of the sayd India, that in this Card I set forth, naming the one La Dominica, and the other Cuba, and brought certaine golde from thence, of the which when the king of Portingal had knowledge, he sent to the king of Spaine, requiring him to give him the sayd islands. For that by the sentence of the Pope all that should be discovered was his, and that hee should not proceede farther in the discoverie without his licence. And at the same time it seemeth that out of Castil into Portingal had gone for feare of burning infinite number of Jewes that were expelled out of Spaine, for that they would not turne to be Christians, and carried with them infinite number of golde and silver. So that it seemeth the king of Spaine answered, that it was reason that the king of Portingal asked, and that to be obedient to that which the Pope had decreed, he would give him the sayd Islands of the Indies. Nowe for as much as it was decreed betwixt the sayde kings that none should receive the others subjects, fugitives, nor their goods, therefore the king of Portingal should pay and returne to the king of Spaine a million of golde or more, that the Jewes had caryed out of Spaine to Portingal, and that in so doing he would give these Islands and desist from any more discovering. And not fulfilling this, he would not not onely not give these Islands, but procure to discover more where him thought best. It seemeth that the king of Portingal would not, or could not with his ease pay this money. And so not paying, that he could not let the king of Spaine to discover: so that he enterprised not toward the Orient where he had begun and found the Spicerie, and consented to the king of Spaine, that touching this discovering they should divide the worlde betweene them two. And that all that should be discovered from Cape Verde, where this Card beginneth to be counted in the degrees of longitude, to 180 of the sayd scale of longitude, which is halfe the world