[Sidenote: The scheme of making settlements relinquished.]

The ardour which had been excited in the bosom of Henry for making
acquisitions in the new world, expired with this first effort. Cabot,
on his return, found that monarch entirely disinclined to the farther
prosecution of a scheme in which he had engaged with some zeal, the
commencement of which had been attended with encouraging appearances.

Several causes are supposed to have contributed to suspend the
pursuits of the English in America. Previous to its discovery, the
Portuguese had explored the Azores, or Western Islands; in consequence
of which they claimed this continent, and contended for the exclusion
of the Spaniards from the Western Ocean. The controversy was decided
by the Pope, who, on the 7th of May 1493, of his own "mere liberality
and certain knowledge, and the plenitude of apostolic authority,"
granted to Spain, the countries discovered or to be discovered by her,
to the westward of a line to be drawn from pole to pole, a hundred
leagues west of the Azores; (excepting such countries as might be in
the possession of any other Christian prince antecedent to the year
1493;) and to Portugal, her discoveries eastward of that line.

The validity of this grant was probably strengthened, in the opinion
of Henry, by other circumstances. He set a high value on the
friendship of the King of Spain, with whom he was then negotiating the
marriage which afterwards took place between his eldest son and
Catharine, the daughter of that monarch. Ferdinand was jealous to
excess of all his rights; and Henry was not inclined to interrupt the
harmony subsisting between the two crowns, by asserting claims to the
country discovered by Cabot, which was obviously within the limits to
which the pretensions of Spain extended.