While we omit such things as these, seignior, says he, what signifies Spain making new acquisitions, or the people of Spain seeking new countries? This vast tract of land you see here, and some hundreds of miles every way which your eye cannot reach to, is a fruitful, pleasant, and agreeable part of the creation, but perfectly uncultivated, and most of it uninhabited; and any nation in Europe that thinks fit to settle in it are free to do so, for anything we are able to do to prevent them. But, seignior, says I, does not his Catholic majesty claim a title to the possession of it? and have the Spaniards no governor over it? nor any ports or towns, settlements, or colonies in it, as is the case here in Chili? Seignior, replied he, the king of Spain is lord of all America, as well that which he possesses as that which he possesses not, that right being given him by the Pope, in the right of his being a Christian prince, making new discoveries for propagating the Christian faith among infidels; how far that may pass for a title among the European powers I know not. I have heard that it has always passed for a maxim in Europe, that no country which is not planted by any prince or people can be said to belong to them; and, indeed, I cannot say but it seems to be rational, that no prince should pretend to any title to a country where he does not think fit to plant and to keep possession. For, if he leaves the country unpossessed, he leaves it free for any other nation to come and possess; and this is the reason why the former kings of Spain did not dispute that right of the French to the colonies of the Mississipi and Canada, or the right of the English to the Caribee islands, or to their colonies of Virginia and New England. In like manner, from the Buenos Ayres, in the Rio de la Plata, which lies that way (pointing north-east), to the Fretum Magellanicum, which lies that way (pointing south-east), which comprehends a vast number of leagues, is called by us Coasta Deserta, being unpossessed by Spain, and disregarded of all our nation; neither is there one Spaniard in it. Nevertheless, you see how fruitful, how pleasant, and how agreeable a climate it is; how apt for planting and peopling it seems to be, and, above all, what a place of wealth here would be behind them, sufficient, and more than enough, both for them and us; for we should have no reason to offer them any disturbance, neither should we be in any condition to do it, the passages of the mountains being but few and difficult, as you have seen, and our numbers not sufficient to do anything more than to block them up, to keep such people from breaking in upon our settlements on the coast of the South Seas.