Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/261

 Chap. X.] REPORT BV FFLKE GREVILLE. 227

of authorities, the memorialists, confident that they had triumphantly estaLlislied ad. i509.

their case, continue thus: —

" Fourtlily, let these shewe any juste and laweful reasons, voyd of afteetion and partialitie, why they should barre her niajestie, and al other Christian princes and states, of the use of the vaste, wyde, and infinitely open ocean sea, and of acces.s to the territories and dominions of so many free ])rinces, kings, and jjotentates in the East, in whose dominions they have noe more soveraign commaund or authoritie, then wee, or any Christians whosoever."

The point thus argued could not be rationally contested, and yet it was Extravagai.t (juite clear tluit the Spaniards woitld not consent to yield it. They claimed in of the virtue of a Papal grant, which had arrogantly bestowed upon them exclusive ' ^^^" riofht to all new lands which mijjht be discovered either in the East or West ; and hence, until this claim was set aside, or voluntarily relinquished, the memorialists, in so far as the question lay between them and such claimants, were doing little better than beating the air when they argued that every locality not actually occupied by the Spaniards and Poi-tuguese was open to all the world. To every such argument of the memorialists, their opponents were always ready to answer, " We claim not merely what we occupy, but the whole tliat we have discovered, or may yet be discovered in those regions." A claim so extravagant could not be acquiesced in by any Protestant government ; but Queen Elizabetli, though she had doubtless determined that the maritime enter- prise of her subjects should have full scope in the East, dealt with the memorial n the cautious spirit in which she usually acted, and before deciding, caused a rej)ort to be made upon it by the celebrated Fidke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke. In this report, which was made to Sir Francis Walsingham, who had refpiested " the names of such kings as are absolute in the East, and either have vvarr or traffique with the Kinge of Sj^aine," Greville entei-s very fully into Report by detail, commencing rather superfluously on the coast of Barbary, and proceeding crevuie. fii-st south to the Cape of Good Hope, and then north to the mouth of the Red Sea. It is here only that his report begins to bear properly upon our subject. Though he acknowledges it to be merely a compilation from two or three authors, "having neither meanes nor t3-me to seak other helpes," it is well entitled, notwithstanding several geographical blunders, to more than a passing notice. After tiacing the east African coast as far as the Cape of Gardafuy, he thus proceeds: —

" At the said cape the Portugalls yeerly lye in wayte for the Turki.sh shippes, which adventure to traffique without their licence, houldinge themselves the only comraaunders of these seas. From the cape to the mouth of the Red Sea are also many small dominions of white Mahometans, rich in gould, sylver, ivory, and all kynd of victuuUs : and behind thes cuntries, in the mayue, lyeth the great empire of Prester John, to whom the Portugalls (as some write) doe yeerly send eight shippes, laden with all kynde of merchandi.se, and also furnish themselves with many .'?ayllei-s out of his coa.st townes in the Red Sea. In the bottom of this sea, at a place ealletl Sues, the Turekes build gallies which scoure all that coast, as far Jis Melinde, and everie yeere annoy the Portugalls exceedinge much. Beyond the Red Sea. Arabia Fa'lix is governed by manie sidtans of greate and absolute jwwer, both by sea and land ; iippon the pointe thereof standeth the riohe and stronge cittie Aden, wher both In-