Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/90

 explore on every side, particularly the western coast of the continent, where the Portuguese traded.

As Portugal had hitherto monopolised the lucrative commerce of that new-found region, the utmost alarm was excited when it became known that a Spanish expedition was preparing to sail under the charge of so daring and intrepid a mariner as Sebastian Cabot. Remonstrances in every conceivable form were addressed to the government of Spain; threats and entreaties were alternately used to terrify or to soothe the navigator himself, and even assassination was openly spoken of as not an unmerited punishment to defeat "so nefarious a project." The king of Portugal himself had, more than once, in the most public manner, asserted that it would be "the utter destruction of his poor kingdom" if he was deprived of the monopoly of the trade with the Moluccas. Although the opposition did not prevail, the influence which had been used delayed the departure of the expedition until April 1526, and the seeds of discontent had been so extensively sown among the fleet, that a mutiny on the coast of Brazil, not unlike what Columbus had encountered on his first great voyage of discovery, threatened the annihilation of the Spanish fleet. Cabot, like Columbus, when similarly situated, saw that his only safety lay in extreme boldness, for, like him, he belonged to that rare class of men whose powers unfold at trying moments. He knew that by a daring exercise of that rightful authority, to which the habit of command on the