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Rh Plata prepared to expel the intruders, but before hostilities had gone far the home governments entered into negotiations. It was agreed to appoint a commission of experts like that of 1524 to meet as then in Badajos and Yelves to determine the exact location of the line of Demarcation. In case no settlement could be reached they were to submit the matter to the Pope. At this convention Spain and Portugal took positions exactly the reverse of what they maintained in 1524. Now that the Moluccas were no longer at stake the Portuguese insisted on taking the westernmost of the Cape Verd Islands as the starting point, while the Spaniards thought it equitable to take the centre island of the group. They could not agree upon maps. According to the Portuguese map, that of Teixeira, the new colony was on their side if the measurement began at San Antonio (the westernmost of the Cape Verd Islands), but not if they measured from the Spanish starting point. According to D'Avezac's conclusions the Spanish calculation at this time was very nearly correct, although a disinterested judge would pronounce in favor of beginning the measurement from the western extremity of the Cape Verd group. The Spaniards proposed to submit the matter to the Pope and Cardinals in full consistory or to the Academies of London and Paris, but Portugal refused. Dissertacion Historica y Geographica Sobre el Meridiano de Demarcacion entre los Dominios de Espana y Portugal, etc., por Don Jorge Juan, y Don Antonio de Ulloa, etc., Madrid, 1740, 46–68; Calvo, Recueil Complet, I, 205–18; MS. memoir of Lastarria, extracted in L'Art de Vérifier les Dates, edited by the Marquis of Fortia, 3d series, XIII, 6–8; the part of this work relating to Brazil was published separately as Histoire de l'Empire du Brésil depuis sa découverte jusqu'à nos jours, par David Bailie Warden. Calvo includes a text of Juan and Ulloa's Dissertacion, which is rare, in his Recueil Complet des Traités, etc., de l'Amérique Latine, I, 190–293. Calvo's text is inaccurate, and was evidently set up from a hasty MS. copy. In one place eight lines have fallen out, and he can only conjecture, "Es probable que aqui se omitio por inadvertencia una clausula ó algunas palabras."

A scientific settlement in which both parties could acquiesce seemed hopeless, so finally the two sovereigns in 1750 agreed in consigning to oblivion the rival claims growing out of the Demarcation Line and began all over again, declaring