THE SPANIARDS AND THE PORTUGUESE DIVIDE THE WORLD. The Spaniards and the Portuguese believed that their discoveries gave them the right to all new lands which should be found and to all trade by sea with the Golden East. Two years after the first voyage of Columbus the Spaniards agreed with the Portuguese that a line running 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands should separate the regions claimed by each. The Spaniards were to hold all lands discovered west of that line, and the Portuguese all east of it. This left Brazil within the region claimed by the Portuguese. The rest of North and South America lay within the Spanish claims. It is the future history of this region that especially interests us as students of American history. [Illustration: CABOT MEMORIAL TOWER Erected at Bristol, England, in memory of the first sailor from England to visit America] THE MAIN QUESTION. Were the Spaniards to keep what they claimed and continue to outstrip their northern rivals? The answer to this question is found in the history of Europe during the sixteenth century. Unfortunately for the Spaniards they were drawn into quarrels in Europe which cost them many men and much money. The consequence was that they were unable to make full use of their discoveries, even if they had known how. Before the century was ended their rivals, the English and the French, were stronger than they; and the Dutch, their own subjects, had rebelled against them. THE ENGLISH AND THE FRENCH DESIRE A SHARE. Men had such great ideas of the immense wealth of the Indies that the successes of one nation made the other nations eager for some part of the spoil. Englishmen and Frenchmen were not likely to allow the Portuguese to take all they could find by sailing eastward around the Cape of Good Hope, and the Spaniards to keep whatever they discovered by sailing directly westward or by following the route marked out by Magellan. Both would search for new routes to the East, and both would lay claim to lands they saw by the way, regardless of any other nation. Many quarrels came from this rivalry, but quarrels arose also from other causes.