Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/532

506 506 SPANISH COLONIAL POLICY. PART II. bj any other voyager for ten or twelve years after. A great part of the kingdom of Brazil was embraced in this extent, and two successive Castilian navigators landed and took formal pos- session of it for the crown of Castile, previous to its reputed discovery by the Portuguese Cabral ; ^° although the claims to it were subsequently relin- quished by the Spanish Government, conformably to the famous line of demarkation established by the treaty of Tordesillas.^' 30 Navarrete, Coleccion de Via- ges, torn. iii. pp. 18-26. — Ca- bral's pretensions to the discovery of Brazil appear not to have been doubted until recently. They are sanctioned both by Robertson and Raynal. ^1 The Portuguese court formed, probably, no very accurate idea of the geographical position of Bra- zil. King Emanuel, in a letter to the Spanish sovereigns acquainting them with Cabral's voyage, speaks of the newly discovered region as not only convenient, but necessary, for the navigation to India. (See the letter, apud Navarrete, Colec- cion de Viages, torn. iii. no. 13.) The oldest maps of this country, whether from ignorance or design, bring it twenty-two degrees east of its proper longitude, so that the whole of the vast tract now com- prehended under the name of Bra- zil, would fall on the Portuguese side of the partition line agreed on by the two governments, which, it will be remembered, was removed to 370 leagues west of the Cape de Verd Islands. The Spanish court made some show at first of resist- ing the pretensions of the Portu- guese, by preparations for estab- lishing a colony on the northern extremity of the Brazilian territory. (Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, torn. iii. p. 39.) It is not easy to understand how it came finally to admit these pretensions. Any cor- rect admeasurement with the Cas- tilian league would only have in- cluded the fringe, as it were, of the northeastern promontory of Brazil. The Portuguese league, allowing seventeen to a degree, may have been adopted, which would em- brace nearly the whole territory which passed under the name of Brazil, in the best ancient maps, extending from Para on the north, to the great river of San Pedro on the south. (See Make Brun, Universal Geography, (Boston, 1824-9,) book 91. Marianaseems willing to help the Portuguese, by running the partition line one hun- dred leagues farther west than they claimed themselves. Hist, de Espaila, torn. ii. p. 607. Ilihtoriaiis of ilie New World. The discovery of the New World riod when the human race was suf- was fortunately reserved for a pe- ficiently enlightened to form some