Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 1.djvu/49

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succeeded in wounding and capturing him. To this feat he added that of cutting off a female slave from her party, and securing her also. Shortly afterwards Nuno Tristam, a knight highly esteemed by Dom Henrique, arrived at the Rio do Ouro with a caravel, intending to explore the coast beyond Angra de Cintra in search of captives. Fired by the exploit of Goncalvez, Tristam landed, marked down a party of natives, and after killing several captured ten men, women, and children, including a personage who ranked as a chief. After exploring the coast, with no further success, as far as Cape Branco, Tristam followed Goncalvez to Portugal, where they joyfully presented to the Iffante the long-desired first-fruit of his projects. Chroniclers dwell complacently on the joy experienced by the Iffante, commensurate not to the value of the slaves actually taken but to the hope of future captures, and on his pious rapture at the prospect of saving the souls of so many African heathen. Dom Henrique now sought and obtained from the Pope a special indulgence for all who should fight under the banner of the Order of Christ for the destruction and confusion of the Moors and other enemies of Christ, and for the exaltation of the Catholic faith. He further procured from his brother Dom Pedro, regent of the kingdom, an exclusive right of navigation on the West African coast, and a surrender of the whole of the royalties due to the Crown on the profits of these voyages. A new stimulus was given to the enterprise by the discovery that captives of rank could be held to ransom, and exchanged for several slaves. In the following year (1442) Goncalvez obtained ten slaves in exchange for two captured chiefs, and brought back a little gold dust and some ostrich eggs. In the next year Tristam passed in his caravel beyond Cape Branco, and reached the island of Arguin. Fortune favoured him in an unusual degree, for he returned with his caravel laden with captives to its full capacity. The success of the enterprise was now assured, and in the next year it was prosecuted on a more extensive scale. The people of Lagos, the port where the captured slaves were landed, roused by the prospect of still greater gains, made preparations for seeking them, by way of joint-stock enterprise, on a larger scale than heretofore. The Iffante licensed an expedition consisting of six caravels, the command being given to Lanzarote, receiver of the royal customs at Lagos, and presented each with a banner emblazoned with the cross of the Order of Christ, to be hoisted as its flag. Lanzarote and his companions raided the coast as far as Cape Branco, shouting "Santiago! San Jorge! Portugal!" as their war-cry, and ruthlessly slaying all who resisted, whether men, women, or children. They brought back to Lagos no less than 235 captives; the receiver of customs was raised by the Iffante to the rank of knight, and the wretched captives were sold and dispersed throughout the kingdom. Large tracts, both of Portugal and Spain, remained waste or half cultivated as a result of the Moorish wars: and the grantees of these