Now, inasmuch as time beyond the period of the memory of man is demanded for the creation of a prescriptive right, it is not always sufficient, as the best commentators point out, to prove the lapse of a hundred years, but the tradition handed down to us by our ancestors ought to be undisputed, provided no one is left alive who has seen or heard anything to the contrary. It was during the reign of King John,[146] in the year of our Lord 1477, at the time of the wars in Africa, that the Portuguese began to push their discoveries first into the more distant parts of the Ocean. Twenty years later, during the reign of King Emmanuel, they rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and somewhat later yet, reached Malacca, and the islands beyond, the very islands, indeed, to which the Dutch began to sail in the year 1595, that is, well within a hundred years of the time that the Portuguese first arrived. And in truth even in that interval, the usurpation of rights there by other parties had interrupted the competence of everybody else to create a prescriptive right. For example, from the year 1519, the Spaniards rendered the possession by the Portuguese of the sea around the Moluccas a very uncertain one. Even the French and - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - fecere. Galli etiam et Angli non clanculum, sed via aperta eo perruperunt. Praeterea accolae totius tractus Africani, aut Asiatici partem maris quisque sibi proximam piscando et navigando perpetuo usurparunt, numquam a Lusitanis prohibiti. Conclusum igitur sit, ius nullum esse Lusitanis quo aliam quamvis gentem a navigatione Oceani ad Indos prohibeant. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - English made their way to those newly discovered places not secretly, but by force of arms. And besides these, the inhabitants of the entire coast of Africa and Asia constantly used for fishing and navigation that part of the sea nearest their own several coasts, and were never interdicted from such use by the Portuguese. The conclusion of the whole matter therefore is that the Portuguese are in possession of no right whereby they may interdict to any nation whatsoever the navigation of the Ocean to the East Indies. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CAPVT VIII _Iure gentium inter quosvis liberam esse mercaturam_ Quod si dicant Lusitani cum Indis commercia exercendi ius quoddam proprium ad se pertinere, eisdem fere omnibus argumentis refellentur. Repetemus breviter et aptabimus.