These symptoms of discontent were duly notified to the Spanish government; who commanded the superintendent, Fonseca, to keep a vigilant eye on the movements of the Portuguese, and, in case any hostile armament should quit their ports, to be in readiness to act against it with one double its force. King John, however, was too shrewd a prince to be drawn into so impolitic a measure as war with a powerful adversary, quite as likely to baffle him in the field, as in the council. Neither did he relish the suggestion of deciding the dispute by arbitration; since he well knew, that his claim rested on too unsound a basis, to authorize the expectation of a favorable award from any impartial umpire. He had already failed in an application for redress to the court of Rome, which answered him by reference to its bulls, recently published. In this emergency, he came to the resolution at last, which should have been first adopted, of deciding the matter by a fair and open conference. It was not until the following year, however, that his discontent so far subsided as to allow his acquiescence in this measure.
At length, commissioners named by the two crowns convened at Tordesillas, and on the 7th of June, 1494, subscribed articles of agreement, which were ratified, in the course of the same year, by the respective powers. In this treaty, the Spaniards were secured in the exclusive right of navigation and discovery in the western ocean. At the urgent remonstrance of the Portuguese, however, who complained that the papal line of demarcation cooped up their enterprises within too narrow limits, they consented, that instead of one hundred, it should be removed three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Cape de Verd islands, beyond which all discoveries should appertain to the Spanish nation. It was agreed that one or two caravels should be provided by each nation, to meet at the Grand Canary, and proceed due west, the appointed distance, with a number of scientific men on board, for the purpose of accurately determining the longitude; and if any lands should fall under the meridian, the direction of the line should be ascertained by the erection of beacons at suitable distances. The proposed meeting never took place. But the removal of the partition line was followed by important consequences to the Portuguese, who derived from it their pretensions to the noble empire of Brazil. [27]
Thus this singular misunderstanding, which menaced an open rupture at one time, was happily adjusted. Fortunately, the accomplishment of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, which occurred soon afterwards, led the Portuguese in an opposite direction to their Spanish rivals, their Brazilian possessions having too little attractions, at first, to turn them from the splendid path of discovery thrown open in the east. It was not many years, however, before the two nations, by pursuing opposite routes of circumnavigation, were brought into collision on the other side of the globe; a circumstance never contemplated, apparently, by the treaty of Tordesillas. Their mutual pretensions were founded, however, on the provisions of that treaty, which, as the reader is aware, was itself only supplementary to the original bull of demarcation of Alexander the Sixth. [28]
Thus this bold stretch of papal authority, so often ridiculed as chimerical and absurd, was in a measure justified by the event, since it did, in fact, determine the principles on which the vast extent of unappropriated empire in the eastern and western hemispheres was ultimately divided between two petty states of Europe.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 13.—Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 28.
[2] Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 15.—Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 116.—Garibay, Compendio, tom. ii. pp. 678, 679.—Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. fol. 315.—Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 1492.—Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 4, dial. 9.
[3] Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 125.—Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 116.—Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, ubi supra.
The great bell of Velilla, whose miraculous tolling always announced some disaster to the monarchy, was heard to strike at the time of this assault on Ferdinand, being the fifth time since the subversion of the kingdom by the Moors. The fourth was on the assassination of the inquisitor Arbues. All which is established by a score of good orthodox witnesses, as reported by Dr. Diego Dormer, in his Discursos Varies, pp. 206, 207.
[4] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 136.—Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 125, 127, 131.—Zurita, Anales, tom. v. fol. 16.—Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., loc. cit.—Garibay, after harrowing the reader's feelings with half a column of inhuman cruelties inflicted on the miserable man, concludes with the comfortable assurance, "Pero abogaronle primero por clemencia y misericordia de la Reyna." (Compendio, tom. ii. lib. 19, cap. 1.)