When the bishopDe las Casas had set forth his tract of the Spanish cruelties committed in the Indies, some guilty persons he supposeth suborned Doctor Sepulveda, the Emperours Historian, to undertake their patronage, which he did in an elegant and rhetoricall discourse, endeavouring to prove, that the Spanish wars against the Indians were just and lawfull, and that they were bound to submit unto the Spaniards, as Ideots to the more prudent; but he could not obtaine leave to print a booke so irrationall and unchristian.

Their more plausible plea is, that Columbus was first employed by them to discover some of those parts; but the same offer was before tendred to this our Nation, and the King thereof; yea and the English were as early in that very designe as the Portingales, for our Chronicles shew that Sebastian Gobat or Cabot, borne at Bristol, was employed by King Henry the seventh, and he with some London Merchants, adventured three or foure ships into those New-found lands, Anno one thousand foure hundred ninety eight; and it cannot be doubted, but they had made some former sufficient experiments, before that their so confident engagement: [Thorowgood cites further alleged evidence of Britain's prior claim to the New World].