Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/221

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MAGELLAN AND THE BOUTE TO INDIA 169 line, and the Spaniards to push theirs far enough to the west, in order that the two nations should meet angrily on the other side of the globe. This they did in 1521. Magellan, disgusted by the ingratitude of Portugal for his services under Albuquerque in the East Indies, offered in 1517 to find out for Spain a new road to Asia. Starting from Seville with five ships in 1519, he coasted down the American continent till he discovered the straits which bear his name. Then striking northwest across the Pacific he made the Philippine Islands, where he was killed in 1521. But his squadron proceeded to the Moluccas, which had al- ready been reached by the Portuguese via the Cape of Good Hope. One ship of Magellan's five succeeded in returning to Seville in 1522, having sailed round the world and thus opened a lawful route for Spain into the East India seas. When the consternation of the Lisbon court calmed down, the difficulty was found susceptible of diplomatic settlement. The Bull of 1493, in partitioning the undis- covered world between Spain and Portugal, started from an imaginary line in the Atlantic. It implied, however, a complementary line half-way round the earth, say 180 degrees distant, as the boundary of the FERDINAND MAGELLAN.