_Considerations on the Rights acquired by the Discovery of
Unknown Lands, and on the Claims advanced by the =Spaniards=._
The accounts given by the Buccaneers who extended their enterprises to the
_Pacific Ocean_, are the best authenticated of any which have been
published by that class of Adventurers. They are interspersed with
nautical and geographical descriptions, corroborative of the events
related, and more worth being preserved than the memory of what was
performed. The materials for this portion of Buccaneer history, which it
was necessary should be included in a History of South Sea Navigations,
could not be collected without bringing other parts into view; whence it
appeared, that with a moderate increase of labour, and without much
enlarging the bulk of narrative, a regular history might be formed of
their career, from their first rise, to their suppression; and that such a
work would not be without its use.
No practice is more common in literature, than for an author to endeavour
to clear the ground before him, by mowing down the labours of his
predecessors on the same subject. To do this, where the labour they have
bestowed is of good tendency, or even to treat with harshness the
commission of error where no bad intention is manifest, is in no small
degree illiberal. But all the Buccaneer histories that hitherto have
appeared, and the number is not small, are boastful compositions, which
have delighted in exaggeration: and, what is most mischievous, they have
lavished commendation on acts which demanded reprobation, and have
endeavoured to raise miscreants, notorious for their want of humanity, to
the rank of heroes, lessening thereby the stain upon robbery, and the
abhorrence naturally conceived against cruelty.
There is some excuse for the Buccaneer, who tells his own story. Vanity,
and his prejudices, without any intention to deceive, lead him to magnify
his own exploits; and the reader naturally makes allowances.
The men whose enterprises are to be related, were natives of different
European nations, but chiefly of _Great Britain_ and _France_, and most of
them seafaring people, who being disappointed, by accidents or the enmity
of the Spaniards, in their more sober pursuits in the _West Indies_, and
also instigated by thirst for plunder as much as by desire for vengeance,
embodied themselves, under different leaders of their own choosing, to
make predatory war upon the Spaniards. These men the Spaniards naturally
treated as pirates; but some peculiar circumstances which provoked their
first enterprises, and a general feeling of enmity against that nation on
account of their American conquests, procured them the connivance of the
rest of the maritime states of _Europe_, and to be distinguished first by
the softened appellations of Freebooters and Adventurers, and afterwards
by that of Buccaneers.
_Spain_, or, more strictly speaking, _Castile_, on the merit of a first
discovery, claimed an exclusive right to the possession of the whole of
_America_, with the exception of the _Brasils_, which were conceded to the
Portuguese. These claims, and this division, the Pope sanctioned by an
instrument, entitled a Bull of Donation, which was granted at a time when
all the maritime powers of _Europe_ were under the spiritual dominion of
the See of _Rome_. The Spaniards, however, did not flatter themselves that
they should be left in the sole and undisputed enjoyment of so large a
portion of the newly-discovered countries; but they were principally
anxious to preserve wholly to themselves the _West Indies_: and, such was
the monopolising spirit of the Castilians, that during the life of the
Queen Ysabel of _Castile_, who was regarded as the patroness of Columbus's
discovery, it was difficult even for Spaniards, not subjects born of the
crown of _Castile_, to gain access to this _New World_, prohibitions being
repeatedly published against the admission of all other persons into the
ships bound thither. Ferdinand, King of _Arragon_, the husband of Ysabel,
had refused to contribute towards the outfit of Columbus's first voyage,
having no opinion of the probability that it would produce him an adequate
return; and the undertaking being at the expence of _Castile_, the
countries discovered were considered as appendages to the crown of
_Castile_.
If such jealousy was entertained by the Spaniards of each other, what must
not have been their feelings respecting other European nations? 'Whoever,'
says Hakluyt, 'is conversant with the Portugal and Spanish writers, shall
find that they account all other nations for pirates, rovers, and thieves,
which visit any heathen coast that they have sailed by or looked on.'
_Spain_ considered the _New World_ as what in our law books is called
Treasure-trove, of which she became lawfully and exclusively entitled to
take possession, as fully as if it had been found without any owner or
proprietor. _Spain_ has not been singular in her maxims respecting the
rights of discoverers. Our books of Voyages abound in instances of the
same disregard shewn to the rights of the native inhabitants, the only
rightful proprietors, by the navigators of other European nations, who,
with a solemnity due only to offices of a religious nature, have
continually put in practice the form of taking possession of Countries
which to them were new discoveries, their being inhabited or desert making
no difference. Not unfrequently has the ceremony been performed in the
presence, but not within the understanding, of the wondering natives; and
on this formality is grounded a claim to usurp the actual possession, in
preference to other Europeans.
Nothing can be more opposed to common sense, than that strangers should
pretend to acquire by discovery, a title to countries they find with
inhabitants; as if in those very inhabitants the right of prior discovery
was not inherent. On some occasions, however, Europeans have thought it
expedient to acknowledge the rights of the natives, as when, in disputing
each other's claims, a title by gift from the natives has been pretended.
In uninhabited lands, a right of occupancy results from the discovery; but
actual and _bona fide_ possession is requisite to perfect appropriation.
If real possession be not taken, or if taken shall not be retained, the
right acquired by the mere discovery is not indefinite and a perpetual bar
of exclusion to all others; for that would amount to discovery giving a
right equivalent to annihilation. Moveable effects may be hoarded and kept
out of use, or be destroyed, and it will not always be easy to prove
whether with injury or benefit to mankind: but the necessities of human
life will not admit, unless under the strong hand of power, that a right
should be pretended to keep extensive and fertile countries waste and
secluded from their use, without other reason than the will of a
proprietor or claimant.
Particular local circumstances have created objections to the occupancy of
territory: for instance, between the confines of the Russian and Chinese
Empires, large tracts of country are left waste, it being held, that their
being occupied by the subjects of either Empire would affect the security
of the other. Several similar instances might be mentioned.
There is in many cases difficulty to settle what constitutes occupancy. On
a small Island, any first settlement is acknowledged an occupancy of the
whole; and sometimes, the occupancy of a single Island of a group is
supposed to comprehend an exclusive title to the possession of the
remainder of the group. In the _West Indies_, the Spaniards regarded their
making settlements on a few Islands, to be an actual taking possession of
the whole, as far as European pretensions were concerned.
The first discovery of Columbus set in activity the curiosity and
speculative dispositions of all the European maritime Powers. King Henry
the VIIth, of _England_, as soon as he was certified of the existence of
countries in the Western hemisphere, sent ships thither, whereby
_Newfoundland_, and parts of the continent of _North America_, were first
discovered. _South America_ was also visited very early, both by the
English and the French; 'which nations,' the Historian of _Brasil_
remarks, 'had neglected to ask a share of the undiscovered World, when
Pope Alexander the VIth partitioned it, who would as willingly have drawn
two lines as one; and, because they derived no advantage from that
partition, refused to admit its validity.' The _West Indies_, however,
which doubtless was the part most coveted by all, seem to have been
considered as more particularly the discovery and right of the Spaniards;
and, either from respect to their pretensions, or from the opinion
entertained of their force in those parts, they remained many years
undisturbed by intruders in the _West Indian Seas_. But their
homeward-bound ships, and also those of the Portuguese from the _East
Indies_, did not escape being molested by pirates; sometimes by those of
their own, as well as of other nations.