_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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