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Rh incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed Peter and Paul Apostles. After a short interval, Jan. 8, 1454, Nicolas issued a Bull in which, after reviewing with praise the zeal of Prince Henry in making discoveries and his desire to find a route to southern and eastern shores even to the Indians, he granted to King Alfonso all that had been or should be discovered south of Cape Bojador and Cape Non toward Guinea and "ultra versus illam meridionalem plagam" as a perpetual possession. Intruders would be visited with excommunication.

These rights were confirmed by Sixtus IV., in a Bull issued June 21, 1481, which granted to the Portuguese Order of Jesus Christ spiritual jurisdiction in all lands acquired from Cape Bojador "ad Indos." This Bull also contained and sanctioned the treaty of 1480 between Spain and Portugal, by which the exclusive right of navigating and of making discoveries along the coast of Africa, with the possession of all the known islands of the Atlantic except the Canaries, was solemnly conceded to Portugal.

Enough has been cited to show that the appeal to the Pope was natural. I venture to conjecture that in these papal