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Rh ground that they infringed upon the possessions of the king of Spain "whose title . .. was indisputable by the Conquest of Castile, and by the Pope's Bull of Donation." The question came up in the House of Commons in 1620 and 1621 when title by papal grant was derided.

In 1531 Francis I. prohibited the Norman vessels from voyages to Brazil or Guinea, where the king of Portugal claimed to be sovereign. The municipal council of Rouen protested in vain. This royal decision was secured by the Portuguese ambassador by bribing Admiral Chabot. Again in 1537 and 1538 the Portuguese secured new ordinances prohibiting voyages to Brazil and Malaguette under pain of confiscation and bodily punishment. Baron Saint Blancard vigorously protested, maintaining the freedom of the seas, and that trade with the peoples of the New World could not be monopolized by one nation any more than trade with the peoples of the Old World.

The same contention is made even more clearly by the French author of one of the relations in Ramusio's Navigationi: "The Portuguese have no more right to prevent the French resorting to these lands, where they have not themselves