CHAPTER II
_The Portuguese have no right by title of discovery to sovereignty over the East Indies to which the Dutch make voyages_
The Portuguese are not sovereigns of those parts of the East Indies to which the Dutch sail, that is to say, Java, Ceylon,* and many of the Moluccas. This I prove by the incontrovertible argument that no one is sovereign of a thing which he himself has never possessed, and which no one else has ever held in his name. These islands of which we speak, now have and always have had their own kings, their own government, their own laws, and their own legal systems. The inhabitants allow the Portuguese to trade with them, just as they allow other nations the same privilege. Therefore, inasmuch as the Portuguese pay tolls, and obtain leave to trade from the rulers there, they thereby give sufficient proof that they do not go there as sovereigns but as foreigners. Indeed they only reside there on suffrance. And although the title to sovereignty is not sufficient, inasmuch as possession is a prerequisite--for having a thing is quite different from having the right to acquire it--nevertheless I affirm that in those places the Portuguese have no title at all to sovereignty which is not denied them by the opinion of learned men, even of the Spaniards.
* [Taprobane was the ancient name of Ceylon. Milton speaks of it in Paradise Regained IV, 75:
“And utmost Indian Isle Taprobane.”]
First of all, if they say that those lands have come under their jurisdiction as the reward of discovery, they lie, both in law and in fact. For to discover a thing is not only to seize it with the eyes but to take real possession thereof,
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ostenditur;[17a] unde Grammatici[18a] invenire et occupare pro verbis ponunt idem significantibus; et tota Latinitas quod adepti sumus, id demum invenisse nos dicit, cui oppositum est perdere. Quin et ipsa naturalis ratio, et legum diserta verba, et eruditiorum interpretatio[19a] manifeste ostendit, ad titulum dominii parandum eam demum sufficere inventionem quae cum possessione coniuncta est, ubi scilicet res mobiles apprehenduntur, aut immobiles terminis atque custodia sepiuntur;[20a] quod in hac specie dici nullo modo potest. Nam praesidia illic Lusitani nulla habent. Quid quod ne reperisse quidem Indiam ullo modo dici possunt Lusitani, quae tot a saeculis fuerat celeberrima. Iam ab Horati tempore:[21a]
_Impiger extremos currit mercator ad Indos Per mare pauperiem fugiens._
Taprobanes pleraque quam exacte nobis Romani descripsere?[22a] Iam vero et ceteras insulas ante Lusitanos non
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as Gordian[17] points out in one of his letters. For that reason the Grammarians[18] give the same signification to the expressions ‘to find’ and ‘to occupy’; and all Latinity applies the phrase ‘we have found’ only to the thing which ‘we have seized’; and the opposite of this is ‘to lose’. However, natural reason itself, the precise words of the law, and the interpretation of the more learned men[19] all show clearly that the act of discovery is sufficient to give a clear title of sovereignty only when it is accompanied by actual possession. And this only applies of course to movables or to such immovables as are actually inclosed within fixed bounds and guarded.[20] No such claim can be established in the present case, because the Portuguese maintain no garrisons in those regions. Neither can the Portuguese by any possible means claim to have discovered India, a country which was famous centuries and centuries ago! It was already known as early as the time of the emperor Augustus as the following quotation from Horace shows:
“_That worst of evils, poverty, to shun Dauntless through seas, and rocks, and fires you run To furthest Ind_,”[21]
And have not the Romans described for us in the most exact way the greater part of Ceylon?[22] And as far as the other islands are concerned, not only the neighboring
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finitimi tantum Persae et Arabes, sed Europaei etiam, praecipue Veneti noverant.
Praeterea inventio nihil iuris tribuit, nisi in ea quae ante inventionem nullius fuerant.[23a] Atqui Indi cum ad eos Lusitani venerunt, etsi partim idololatrae, partim Mahumetani erant, gravibusque peccatis involuti, nihilominus publice atque privatim rerum possessionumque suarum dominium habuerunt, quod illis sine iusta causa eripi non potuit.[24a] Ita certissimis rationibus post alios auctores maximi nominis concludit Hispanus Victoria:[25a] ‘Non possunt’, inquit, ‘Christiani saeculares aut Ecclesiastici potestate civili et principatu privare infideles, eo dumtaxat titulo, quia infideles sunt, nisi ab eis alia iniuria profecta sit’.
Fides enim, ut recte inquit Thomas[26a] non tollit ius naturale aut humanum ex quo dominia profecta sunt. Immo credere infideles non esse rerum suarum dominos, haereticum est; et res ab illis possessas illis ob hoc ipsum eripere furtum est et rapina, non minus quam si idem fiat Christianis.
Recte igitur dicit Victoria[27a] non magis ista ex causa Hispanis ius in Indos quaesitum, quam Indis fuisset in Hispanos, si qui illorum priores in Hispaniam venissent. Neque vero sunt Indi Orientis amentes et insensati, sed
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Persians and Arabs, but even Europeans, particularly the Venetians, knew them long before the Portuguese did.
But in addition to all this, discovery _per se_ gives no legal rights over things unless before the alleged discovery they were _res nullius_.[23] Now these Indians of the East, on the arrival of the Portuguese, although some of them were idolators, and some Mohammedans, and therefore sunk in grievous sin, had none the less perfect public and private ownership of their goods and possessions, from which they could not be dispossessed without just cause.[24] The Spanish writer Victoria,[25] following other writers of the highest authority, has the most certain warrant for his conclusion that Christians, whether of the laity or of the clergy, cannot deprive infidels of their civil power and sovereignty merely on the ground that they are infidels, unless some other wrong has been done by them.
For religious belief, as Thomas Aquinas[26] rightly observes, does not do away with either natural or human law from which sovereignty is derived. Surely it is a heresy to believe that infidels are not masters of their own property; consequently, to take from them their possessions on account of their religious belief is no less theft and robbery than it would be in the case of Christians.
Victoria then is right in saying[27] that the Spaniards have no more legal right over the East Indians because of their religion, than the East Indians would have had over the Spaniards if they had happened to be the first foreigners to come to Spain. Nor are the East Indians stupid and unthinking; on the contrary they are intelligent and shrewd,
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ingeniosi et solertes, ita ut ne hinc quidem praetextus subiciendi possit desumi, qui tamen per se satis est manifestae iniquitatis. Iam olim Plutarchus πρόφασιν πλεονεξίας fuisse dicit ἡμερῶσαι τὰ βαρβαρικὰ,* improbam scilicet alieni cupiditatem hoc sibi velum obtendere, quod barbariem mansuefacit. Et nunc etiam color ille redigendi invitas gentes ad mores humaniores, qui Graecis olim et Alexandro usurpatus est, a Theologis omnibus, praesertim Hispanis,[28a] improbus atque impius censetur.
* [Plutarch, Pompeius LXX].
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so that a pretext for subduing them on the ground of their character could not be sustained. Such a pretext on its very face is an injustice. Plutarch said long ago that the civilizing of barbarians had been made the pretext for aggression, which is to say that a greedy longing for the property of another often hides itself behind such a pretext. And now that well-known pretext of forcing nations into a higher state of civilization against their will, the pretext once seized by the Greeks and by Alexander the Great,* is considered by all theologians, especially those of Spain,[28] to be unjust and unholy.
* [Cf. Plutarch, Of the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander the Great I, 5].
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CAPVT III
_Lusitanos in Indos non habere ius dominii titulo donationis Pontificiae_
Secundo si Pontificis Alexandri Sexti divisione utentur, ante omnia illud attendendum est, volueritne Pontifex contentiones tantum Lusitanorum et Castellanorum dirimere, quod potuit sane, ut lectus inter illos arbiter, sicut et ipsi Reges iam ante inter se ea de re foedera quaedam pepigerant;[29a] et hoc si ita est, cum res inter alios acta sit, ad ceteras gentes non pertinebit; an vero prope singulos mundi trientes duobus populis donare. Quod etsi voluisset, et potuisset Pontifex, non tamen continuo sequeretur dominos eorum locorum esse Lusitanos, cum donatio dominum non faciat, sed secuta traditio;[30a] quare et huic causae possessio deberet accedere.
Tum vero si quis ius ipsum sive divinum sive humanum scrutari volet, non autem ex commodo suo metiri, facile
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