The royal grant had placed under his jurisdiction
all the country extending two hundred and seventy leagues south
of the river of Santiago, situated one degree and twenty minutes
north of the equator. Two hundred and seventy leagues on the
meridian, by our measurement, would fall more than a degree short
of Cuzco, and, indeed, would barely include the city of Lima
itself. But the Spanish leagues, of only seventeen and a half to
a degree, *9 would remove the southern boundary to nearly half a
degree beyond the capital of the Incas, which would thus fall
within the jurisdiction of Pizarro. *10 Yet the division-line ran
so close to the disputed ground, that the true result might
reasonably be doubted, where no careful scientific observations
had been made to obtain it; and each party was prompt to assert,
as they always are in such cases, that its own claim was clear
and unquestionable. *11
[Footnote 9: "Contando diez i siete leg as i media por grado."
Herrera Hist. General, dec. 6, lib. 3, cap. 5.]
[Footnote 10: The government had endeavoured early to provide
against any dispute in regard to the limits of the respective
jurisdictions. The language of the original grants gave room to
some misunderstanding; and, as early as 1536, Fray Jomas de
Berlanga, Bishop of Tierra Firme, had been sent to Lima with full
powers to determine the question of boundary, by fixing the
latitude of the river of Santiago, and measuring two hundred and
seventy leagues south on the meridian.
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