Item: it is well-known that the Portuguese themselves confessed that the said Maluco islands were so far to the eastward that they fell within their Majesties’ territories.  And this was so apparent that one of the deputies acting now in this cause for the said King, by name Master Margallo, in a philosophical book written by him, and but lately out of press, in showing the division between Castilla and Portugal, proves that the said Malucos fall and are within their Majesties’ limits.  And too, when they were discovered by the Castilian fleet, the King of Portugal desiring to have information regarding their location and boundary, considered himself perfectly assured when all those whom he ordered to assemble for this purpose concluded that they lay within the Castilian boundaries.  And therefore the more than great caution exercised up to that time in not permitting sea charts to be taken from his realms was thereafter observed much more strictly, and many maps were burned, destroyed, and seized, and an order was sent forth that the routes in all maps should be shortened.  And those maps they do give out for purposes of navigation, to those who must sail toward India, they give on account, so that they must be returned to the treasury in order that there might be no information in other places as to the longitude of this route.  And all the abovesaid is confirmed more clearly, because, notwithstanding the great caution exercised in Portugal in not allowing maps to be taken outside of the kingdom, certain Portuguese and Castilians have taken and possessed some maps.  We, the said deputies of their Majesties, wishing to become better informed concerning these maps, in order to pronounce better and more truly upon this case, for the greater assurance of our consciences, and for the purpose of securing the most indubitable knowledge in regard to this matter, summoned before us certain pilots and men, skilled both in navigation and in making maps, globes, and mappamundos.  These men have always tried to inform themselves with great care, concerning the distances and routes of the said voyage, both of those who made the voyage, and of those who delineated and located the lands comprehended in the voyage.  They stated under oath and before two notaries and the secretary of this case, that they knew that the said navigation and the location of these lands comprised more degrees than was declared and demonstrated by the said deputies of the King of Portugal, by their globes and maps.  So much greater was the distance that it was evident they were now trying to shorten the said voyage again by more than twenty-five degrees of longitude of the distance until now declared by them.

Therefore, as is apparent from the said information of modern navigators and cosmographers, both Portuguese and those of other nations, and from the relation of the said pilots and sailors, it has been proved completely that the said distances and routes, declared by the said deputies of Portugal, are neither just nor true, and that the deputies have reported them much shorter than, in sober truth, they are.  From this it can be presumed, that inasmuch as they shorten the said route each day, the said mistake of fifty degrees proceeds doubtless from their eastern part and not from our western part.