300
LIFE
AND VOYAGES, ETC.
[BOOK
V.
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 de Verd 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 de Verd 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 voyages.
Various circumstances impeded the proposed
expedition to determine the line, but the treaty remained in force, and prevented all further discussions. Thus, says Vasconcelos, 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 him self entitled to the vast countries that might be discovered within his boundary, without any regard to the rights of the native in habitants. * Zurita, Hist. del Rey Fernand., lib. i. cap. 29.
Vasconcelos, lib. vi.