The pontiff at that time was Alexander VI., who, though he has been stigmatized as having been guilty of nearly every vice, was not unmindful of the political significance of his position. Born a subject of Aragon, he might be supposed to think favourably of the claims of Spain; but Ferdinand judged his character accurately, and therefore thought it not wise to trust anything to chance or accident. Accordingly, he despatched ambassadors to the court of Rome to announce the new discovery with due formality, and to set forth the gain that must accrue to the Church from the acquisition of so vast a new territory. The ambassadors were charged to say that great care had been taken not to trench upon the possessions that had been ceded to Portugal. On one further point the instructions of Ferdinand were characteristic of his great political acumen. He desired to intimate as delicately as possible, but at the same time with unequivocal distinctness, that whatever the papal pleasure might be, he should maintain and defend his newly acquired possessions at all hazards. This he did by instructing his ambassadors to say that in the opinion of many learned men it was not necessary that he should obtain the papal sanction for the title of the newly discovered lands, but that notwithstanding this fact, as pious and devoted princes, the king and queen supplicated his Holiness to issue a papal bull conceding the lands which Columbus had discovered, or hereafter might discover, to the Crown of Castile. The news was received by Alexander with great joy; and the request was the more readily granted because of the favour which the Spanish sovereigns had recently acquired at Rome by the successful termination of the terrible conflict with the Moors. Indeed, these new discoveries appear to have been regarded as in some sense an appropriate reward for the vigorous prosecution of that crusade against the infidels. A bull was accordingly issued on the 2d of May, 1493, conceding to the Spanish sovereigns the same rights and privileges in respect to the newly discovered lands in the West as had previously been granted to the king of Portugal in regard to their discoveries in Africa. In order to prevent the liability of dispute as to jurisdiction, this bull was accompanied with another to determine a line of demarcation. The pope established an imaginary line “one hundred leagues west of the Azores and Cape de Verde Islands,” extending from pole to pole. All lands west of this line that had not been discovered by some other Christian power before the preceding Christmas, and that had been or might hereafter be discovered by Spanish navigators, should belong to the Crown of Spain; all east of that line, to the Crown of Portugal.