quod ab origine Mundi, ad hodiernum usque diem est, fuitque semper in communi, nulla ex parte immutatum, ut est notum’.
‘Et quamvis ex LVSITANIS magnam turbam saepe audiverim in hac esse opinione ut eorum Rex ita praescripserit navigationem INDICI Occidentalis (forte Orientalis) eiusdemque VASTISSIMI MARIS, ita ut reliquis gentibus aequora illa transfretare non liceat, et ex nostrismet HISPANIS VVLGVS in eadem opinione fere esse videtur, ut per VASTISSIMVM IMMENSVMQVE PONTVM ad Indorum regiones quas potentissimi Reges nostri subegerunt reliquis mortalium navigare praeterquam Hispanis ius minime sit, quasi ab eis id ius praescriptum fuerit, tamen istorum omnium non minus INSANAE sunt opiniones, quam eorum qui quoad Genuenses et Venetos in eodem fere SOMNIO esse adsolent, quas sententias INEPTIRE vel ex eo dilucidius apparet, quod istarum nationum singulae contra seipsas nequeunt praescribere: hoc est, non respublica Venetiarum contra semetipsam, non respublica Genuensium contra semetipsam, non Regnum Hispanicum contra semetipsum, non Regnum Lusitanicum contra semetipsum.[137a] Esse enim debet differentia inter agentem et patientem’.
‘Contra reliquas vero nationes longe minus praescribere possunt, quia ius praescriptionum est mere civile, ut fuse ostendimus supra. Ergo tale ius cessat cum agitur inter principes vel populos, superiorem non recognoscentes in temporalibus. Iura enim mere civilia cuiuscumque regionis,
very day is and always has been a res communis, and which, as is well known, has in no wise changed from that status.
‘And although’, he continues, ‘I have often heard that a great many Portuguese believe that their king has a prescriptive right over the navigation of the vast seas of the West Indies (probably the East Indies too) such that other nations are not allowed to traverse those waters; and although the common people among our own Spaniards seem to be of the same opinion, namely, that absolutely no one in the world except us Spaniards ourselves has the least right to navigate the great and immense sea which stretches to the regions of the Indies once subdued by our most powerful kings, as if that right has been ours alone by prescription; although, I repeat, I have heard both these things, nevertheless the belief of all those people is no less extravagantly foolish than that of those who are always cherishing the same delusions with respect to the Genoese and Venetians. Indeed the opinions of them all appear the more manifestly absurd, because no one of those nations can erect a prescription against itself; that is to say, not the Venetian republic, nor the Genoese republic, nor the kingdom of Spain nor of Portugal can raise prescriptions against rights they already possess by nature.[137] For the one who claims a prescriptive right and the one who suffers by the establishment of such a claim must not be one and the same person.
‘Against other nations they are even much less competent to raise a prescription, because the right of prescription is only a municipal right, as we have shown above at some length. Therefore such a right ceases to have any effect as between rulers or nations who do not recognize a superior in the temporal domain. For so far as the merely municipal laws of any place are concerned, they do not