SECOND VOYAGE. 175 The court of Lisbon viewed with secret dis- chapter , , . . . . ^ . ^ . XVIII. quietude the increasing maritime enterprise oi its . neighbours. While the Portuguese were timidly thecounor ° _ . Lisbon. creeping along the barren shores of Africa, the Spaniards had boldly launched into the deep, and rescued unknown realms from its embraces, which teemed in their fancies with treasures of inestimable wealth. Their mortification was greatly enhanced by the reflection, that all this might have been achieved for themselves, had they but known how to profit by "the proposals of Columbus. ^^ From the first moment in which the success of the admi- ral's enterprise was established, John the Second, a politic and ambitious prince, had sought some pretence to check the career of discovery, or at least to share in the spoils of it.^^ In his interview with Columbus, at Lisbon, he suggested, that the discoveries of the Spaniards might interfere with the rights secured to the Por- tuguese by repeated papal sanctions since the be- ginning of the present century, and guarantied by the treaty with Spain, in 1479. Columbus, without entering into the discussion, contented himself with declaring, that he had been instructed by his own government to steer clear of all Portuguese settle- ments on the African coast, and that his course indeed had led him in an entirely different direc- ts Padre Abarca considers " that for the subjugation of the Moors, the discovery of a new world, first and the expulsion of the Jews!" offered to the kings of Portugal and Reyes de Aragon, fol. 310, 311. England, was reserved by Heaven 24 Lg, Clede, Hist, de Portugal, for Spain, being forced, in a man- torn. iv. pp. 53-58. ner, on Ferdinand, in recompense
