. . north
and south, with all the seas from the Pole Arctic to the Pole
Antarctic, . . . both now, and as long as the world endures, until the
final day of judgment." [1]
Shorn of noise, the motive was simply to shut out the rest of the world
from Spain's treasure box. The Monroe Doctrine was not yet born. _The
whole Pacific was to be a closed sea_! To be sure, Vasco da Gama had
found the way round the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean; and
Magellan soon after passed through the strait of his name below South
America {135} right into the Pacific Ocean; but round the world by the
Indian Ocean was a far cry for tiny craft of a few hundred tons; and
the Straits of Magellan were so storm-bound, it soon became a common
saying that they were a closed door. Spain sent her sailors across
Panama to build ships for the Pacific. The sea that bore her treasure
craft--millions upon millions of pounds sterling in pure gold, silver,
emeralds, pearls--was as closed to the rest of the world as if walled
round with only one chain-gate; and that at Panama, where Spain kept
the key.
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