Page:European treaties bearing on the history of the United States and its dependencies.djvu/78

 tolic letters and of other privileges and instruments concerning the status, jurisdiction, faculties, and pre-eminences of the Most Serene Lady, our Lady Joanna, by the favor of divine mercy Catholic queen of the kingdoms of Castile, Leon, and Granada, and in respect to her royal patrimony, we have seen and dili­ gently inspected certain apostolic letters of our lord, of happy memory, the lord Pope Alexander VI., sealed in the form of his true bull, with a leaden seal hanging on a red and yellow cord of silk, in the manner of the Roman court, written on parchment and in the Latin tongue, produced and pre­ sented in its original form before us in judgment by the said lord, the bachelor, Diego Salmeron. And because, upon this view and inspection, we found the aforesaid apostolic letters whole, entire, and unimpaired, and, as it seemed, utterly without blemish or suspicious appearance, therefore, at the further instance of the aforesaid lord bachelor, Diego Salmeron, we have caused and ordered these letters to be copied and transcribed and brought into the form of this public transumpt by the notary public aforesaid, wishing and, by the ordinary authority which we enjoy, decreeing, that that and the same and similar and as great credence be given to this public transumpt, in whatever places or lands it shall be exhibited and produced, in court or out, as any of the same kind and degree as would adhere to the same original apostolic letters from which the present transumpt or exemplar was drawn, if they should be publicly exhibited or displayed. The tenor of the aforesaid apostolic letters of which mention was made above, follows, and is this:

Alexander, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the illustrious sovereigns, our very dear son in Christ, Ferdinand, king, and our very dear daughter in Christ, Isabella, queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Granada, health and apostolic benediction. The sincerity and whole-souled loyalty of your exalted attachment to ourselves and the Church of Rome deserve to have us grant in your favor those things whereby daily you may the better and more easily be enabled to the honor of Almighty God and the spread of Christian government as well as the exaltation of the Catholic faith to carry out your holy and praiseworthy purpose and the work already undertaken of making search far-away and unknown countries and islands. For this very day of our own accord and certain knowledge, and out of the fullness of our apostolic power, we have given, granted, and assigned forever, as appears more fully in our letters drawn up therefor, to you and your heirs and successors, kings of Castile and Leon, all and singular the remote and unknown mainlands and islands lying towards the western parts and the ocean sea, that have been discovered or hereafter may be discovered by you or your envoys, whom you have equipped therefor not without great hard­ ships, dangers, and expense--and with them all their lordships, cities, castles, places, villages, rights, and jurisdictions; provided however these countries have not been in the actual temporal possession of any Christian lords. But inasmuch as at another time the Apostolic See has granted divers privileges, favors, liberties, immunities, exemptions, faculties, letters, and indults to certain kings of Portugal, who also by similar apostolic grant and donation in their favor, have discovered and taken possession of islands in the regions of Africa, Guinea, and the Gold Mine, and elsewhere, with the desire to em­ power by our apostolic authority, as also is right and fitting, you and your aforesaid heirs and successors with graces, prerogatives, and favors of no