America and West Indies: December 1613 | British History Online

Page 16

Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies: Volume 1, 1574-1660. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1860.

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Citation:

December 1613



1613?	32. Account of the Countries and Provinces at this time actually possessed by the Spaniards and Portuguese in the West Indies. Almost all included within the two tropics, except two small towns, St. Augustin and St. Helena, in Florida. The Spanish towns within the Straits of Magellan, found by [Thos.] Candish [Cavendish], in both his voyages, "utterly ruined and dispeopled." The islands possessed by the Spaniards are St. Juan de Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Cuba, and Jamaica; the great multitude of those other small islands adjoining, either desolate or inhabited only by a few savages. All countries on the east part of America, from 32 to 72 degrees N.L., have not, nor never had, Spanish colony planted. They belong to the Crown of England by right of discovery and actual possession, taken on behalf of the Queen by the deputies of Sir Walter Raleigh, "and by the two English colonies thither deducted, whereof the later is yet there remaining." They should not be given over to the Spaniards, who have already more than they can well wield. Discovery and possession of New Albion by Sir Fras. Drake. Arguments whether an Englishman may trade to the West Indies; it is contended, that the sea and trade are common to all, both by the law of nature and of nations, and that the voyages of Sir John Hawkins and Sir Fras. Drake were "no private but public actions." Answers to the Bull of Pope Alexander VI., dated 1493, upon which depends the title of the King of Spain. [See preceding.]
1613?	33. Copy of the preceding, temp. Car. II. Endorsed by Williamson.