Indeed, such commerce as they advocated was essentially practical, and adventurers who proposed novel channels of trade were considered visionaries. It is, however, to an enlightened Portuguese prince that the civilized world is indebted for first setting in motion those expeditions of discovery, which, throughout the greater portion of the fifteenth century, and especially towards its close, afforded so much delight and astonishment to the nations of Europe.
A.D. 1415.
Expeditions along the west coast of Africa, by order of Prince Henry.
Soon after the conquest of Ceuta by Dom John I.,
king of Portugal, his fifth son Prince Henry, who
had been appointed governor of the conquered Moorish
province, directed his attention to an exploration
of the western coast of Africa. Imbued with a spirit
for maritime discovery, this intelligent and accomplished
prince was incessant in his efforts to increase
the geographical knowledge of the time. From his
boyhood he had made mathematics and navigation
a continual study. To facilitate his long-meditated
voyages of discovery he had fixed his abode in
the kingdom of Algarve on the most elevated point
of Cape St. Vincent, a spot he considered more
favourable than any other on the coast of Spain for
his astronomical observations, and where he founded
the town of Sagres.[1] The first expedition undertaken
in 1417 with two very indifferent vessels proved
unsuccessful, having only proceeded five degrees south
from its point of departure, the currents at the mouth
of the Mediterranean being alleged as unsurmount-*
- ↑ See full details of these subjects very carefully worked out in an admirable "Life of Prince Henry the Navigator," by R. H. Major, F.S.A., M.R.S.L., and Keeper of the Department of Maps, British Museum. Lond. 1868.
