2. As the Dutch have always regarded these islands with suspicion, fearing some injury to their own commerce, they likewise have striven in every way to make amends for the damages which they fear. One of these is the extension of our commerce, because it diminishes their own; and, in order to hinder it, they have sometimes chosen to avail themselves of article 5 in the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and of article 10 in that of Utrecht in 1714--in which is confirmed the said article 5, wherein it is provided that "the Spaniards shall retain their navigation to the Eastern Indias, in the same manner as they enjoy it at present, without being authorized to extend it further; as likewise the inhabitants of this Low Country [i.e., Netherlands] shall abstain from frequenting the places which the Castilians possess in the Eastern Indias." From these expressions, and from the demarcation [made] by the supreme pontiff Alexander Sixth, the Dutch--who claim, by right of conquest, to enjoy the privileges and prerogatives of the Portuguese--try to argue that our ships have no right to navigate by way of the Cape of Good Hope, nor along the regions of Asia--the Coromandel Coast, Vengala, the Red Sea, etc.--intending that these Philipinas Islands shall be the limits of our navigation to the west. 3-8. [In section 3, it is shown that the demarcation of Alexander VI was made only to check possible disputes between the great Catholic nations of Spain and Portugal, and its provisions referred only to their discoveries of lands and isles, and not at all to the navigation of the sea, which no power can claim, "since it is not fitted for other dominion than that of God." Section 4 shows that the Portuguese and Spaniards have frequented each other's ports, without any difficulties arising between them over the navigation of those seas, which has not been and could not be forbidden to the Spaniards; and that even if the Portuguese had had any such exclusive right it could not pass over to the Dutch when they conquered the former nation in India, especially as privileges granted by the Holy See to its Catholic followers could not be claimed by Protestants. In section 5 it is asserted that the previously-cited article 5 of the treaty of Westphalia does not forbid navigation past the Cape of Good Hope, but only the entrance of Spaniards or Dutch into ports belonging to the other power; that navigation on the high seas is, "by natural right, free to all the world," and the object of the treaty was to protect both powers in their respective possessions and commerce. As further proof of this, Viana cites (in his section 6) the Hague treaty of 1650, and comments on it in section 7. In the following section he shows how the Dutch are claiming what was never granted by Alexander VI, who separated only the conquests of Spain and Portugal, and not their navigations in the high seas, a distinction which has been observed in the practice