men and other domestics for his immediate service, to form his household and retinue as admiral and viceroy-a demand which was considered superfluous by the prelate, as all who embarked in the expedition were at his command. In reply, the sovereigns ordered that he should be allowed ten escuderos de à pie, or footmen, and twenty persons in other domestic capacities, and reminded Fonseca of their charge that, both in the nature and mode of his transactions with the Admiral, he should study to give him content; observing that, as the whole armament was intrusted to his command, it was but reasonable that his wishes should be consulted, and no one embarrass him with punctilios and difficulties.*

These trivial differences are worthy of particular notice, from the effect they appear to have had on the mind of Fonseca, for from them we must date the rise of that singular hostility which he ever afterwards manifested towards Columbus; which every year increased in rancor, and which he gratified in the most invidious manner, by secretly multiplying impediments and vexations in his path.

While the expedition was yet lingering in port, intelligence was received that a Portuguese caravel had set sail from Madeira and

* Navarrete, Colec., tom. ii., Documentos, No. 62–66.

steered for the west. Suspicions were immediately awakened that she was bound for the lately discovered lands. Columbus wrote an account of it to the sovereigns, and proposed to despatch a part of his fleet in pursuit of her. His proposition was approved, but not carried into effect. On remonstrances being made to the court at Lisbon, King John declared that the vessel had sailed without his permission, and that he would send three caravels to bring her back. This only served to increase the jealousy of the Spanish monarchs, who considered the whole a deep-laid stratagem, and that it was intended the vessels should join their forces and pursue their course together to the New World. Columbus was urged, therefore, to depart without an hour's delay, and instructed to steer wide of Cape St. Vincent, and entirely avoid the Portuguese coasts and islands, for fear of molestation. If he met with any vessels in the seas he had explored, he was to seize them, and inflict rigorous punishment on the crews. Fonseca was also ordered to be on the alert, and in case any expedition sailed from Portugal to send double the force after it. These precautions, however, proved unnecessary. Whether such caravels actually did sail, and whether they were sent with sinister motives by Portugal, does not

VOL. II.-3

appear; nothing was either seen or heard of them by Columbus in the course of his voyage.

It may be as well, for the sake of distinctness, to anticipate, in this place, the regular course of history, and mention the manner in which this territorial question was finally settled between the rival sovereigns. It was impossible for King John to repress his disquiet at the indefinite enterprises of the Spanish monarchs; he did not know how far they might extend, and whether they might not forestall him in all his anticipated discoveries in India. Finding, however, all attempts fruitless to gain by stratagem an advantage over his wary and skilful antagonist, and despairing of any further assistance from the court of Rome, he had recourse at last to fair and amicable negotiations, and found, as is generally the case with those who turn aside into the inviting but crooked paths of craft, that had he kept to the line of frank and open policy he would have saved himself a world of perplexity, and have arrived sooner at his object. He offered to leave to the Spanish sovereigns the free prosecution of their western discovery, and to conform to the plan of partition by meridian line. But he represented that this line had not been drawn far enough to the west; that while it left the wide ocean free to

the range of Spanish enterprise, his navigators could not venture more than a hundred leagues west of his possessions, and had no scope or sea-room for their southern voyages.

After much difficulty and discussion this momentous dispute was adjusted by deputies from the two Crowns, who met at Tordesillas in Old Castile in the following year, and on the 7th of June, 1494, signed a treaty by which the papal line of partition was moved to three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. It was agreed that within six months an equal number of caravels and mariners on the part of the two nations should rendezvous at the island of the Grand Canary, provided with men learned in astronomy and navigation. They were to proceed thence to the Cape Verde Islands, and thence westward three hundred and seventy leagues, and determine the proposed line from pole to pole, dividing the ocean between the two nations.* Each of the two powers engaged solemnly to observe the bounds thus prescribed, and to prosecute no enterprise beyond its proper limits; though it was agreed that the Spanish navigators might traverse freely the eastern parts of the ocean in prosecuting their rightful

* Zurita, Hist. del Rey Fernand., lib. i., cap. 22. Vasconcellos, lib. vi.

voyages. Various circumstances impeded the proposed expedition to determine the line, but the treaty remained in force and prevented all further discussions.

Thus, says Vasconcellos, this great question, the greatest ever agitated between the two Crowns, for it was the partition of a new world, was amicably settled by the prudence and address of two of the most politic monarchs that ever swayed the sceptre. It was arranged to the satisfaction of both parties, each holding himself entitled to the vast countries that might be discovered within his boundary, without any regard to the rights of the native inhabitants.