174 ENGLAND'S ATTEMPTS TO EEACH INDIA When, therefore, Columbus believed he had found a way to India southwest across the Atlantic in 1492, and mistook Cuba for Japan, the Bristol merchants redoubled their efforts by a northwestern route across the same ocean. All such expeditions assumed the rotundity of the earth, and the vagueness of the Papal Bull of 1493, which embittered the relations of Spain and Portugal, gave cover to the English proceedings. That Bull excluded intrusion only toward " the west and south," explicitly repeating these terms four times over, and making no reference to discoveries by the north. The practical monopoly of Spain was to reach India by a southwest route; the practical monopoly of Portu- gal was to reach India by a southeast route; the Eng- lish resolved to find India by a northwestern or north- eastern passage. Spain saw that this might lead to an infringement on the Portuguese claims and on her own, but she did not press the point so as either to threaten a rupture or to prevent the English voyages. Indeed the Bull of 1493, by referring exclusively to discoveries toward the west and south, left the north open; and the Spanish ambassador himself ad- mitted that the Bristol merchants had been yearly exploring in that direction before the Bull was granted. " You write that a person like Columbus/' runs a letter to him from their Catholic Majesties in 1496, " has come to England for the purpose of persuading the king to enter into an undertaking similar to that of the Indies, without prejudice to Spain and Portugal. He is quite
