Note 44 — CARTIER EXPLORES CANADA
Reading edition
The courts of Spain and Portugal had protested against any fresh expedition from France to the west, alleging that, by right of prior discovery, as well as the Pope's grant of all the western regions to themselves, the French could not go there without invading their privileges. Francis, on the other hand, treated these pretensions with derision, observing sarcastically that he would "like to see the clause in old Father Adam's will by which an inheritance so vast was bequeathed to his brothers of Spain and Portugal."