The decision thus made was long respected.  Under a mistaken impression as to the longitude of the Philippine Islands in the East Indies, Spain has held those islands, under this line of division, ever since their discovery by Magellan.  She considered herself entitled to all the islands and lands between the meridian thus drawn in the Atlantic and the similar meridian one hundred and eighty degrees away, on exactly the other side of the world.

Under the same line of division, Portugal held, for three centuries and more, Brazil, which projects so far eastward into the Atlantic as to cross this line of division.

Fearful, all the time, that neither the pope’s decree, nor any diplomacy would prevent the king of Portugal from attempting to seize lands at the west, the Spanish court pressed with eagerness arrangements for a second expedition.  It was to be on a large and generous scale and to take out a thousand men.  For this was the first plan, though the number afterwards was increased to fifteen hundred.  To give efficiency to all the measures of colonization, what we should call a new department of administration was formed, and at the head of it was placed Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca.

Fonseca held this high and responsible position for thirty years.  He early conceived a great dislike of Columbus, who, in some transactions before this expedition sailed, appealed to the sovereigns to set aside a decision of Fonseca’s, and succeeded.  For all the period while he managed the Indian affairs of Spain, Fonseca kept his own interests in sight more closely than those of Spain or of the colonists; and not Columbus only, but every other official of Spain in the West Indies, had reason to regret the appointment.

The king of Portugal and the sovereigns of Spain began complicated and suspicious negotiations with each other regarding the new discoveries.  Eventually, as has been said, they acceded to the pope’s proposal and decree.  But, at first, distrusting each other, and concealing their real purposes, in the worst style of the diplomacy of that time, they attempted treaties for the adjustment between themselves of the right to lands not yet discovered by either.  Of these negotiations, the important result was that which has been named,—­the change of the meridian of division from that proposed by the pope.  It is curious now to see that the king of Portugal proposed a line of division, which would run east and west, so that Spain should have the new territories north of the latitude of the Grand Canary, and Portugal all to the south.

In the midst of negotiation, the king and queen and Columbus knew that whoever was first on the ground of discovery would have the great advantage.  There was a rumor in Spain that Portugal had already sent out vessels to the west.  Everything was pressed with alacrity at Cadiz.  The expedition was to be under Columbus’s absolute command.  Seamen of reputation were engaged to serve under him.  Seventeen vessels were to take out a colony.  Horses as well as cattle and other domestic animals were provided.  Seeds and plants of different kinds were sent out, and to this first colonization by Spain, America owes the sugar-cane, and perhaps some other of her tropical productions.