No More Learning

The discoverers of Puerto Santo, accompanied by Bartholomew Perestrello,
were, with three ships, sent out on farther trial. Perestrello, having
sown some seeds and left some cattle at Puerto Santo, returned to
Portugal. [47] Zarco and Vaz directing their course southward, in 1419,
perceived something like a cloud on the water, and sailing towards it,
discovered an island covered with woods, which from this circumstance
they named Madeira. [48] And this rich and beautiful island was the first
reward of the enterprises of Prince Henry.

Nature calls upon Portugal to be a maritime power, and her naval
superiority over the Moors, was, in the time of Henry, the surest
defence of her existence as a kingdom. Yet, though all his labours
tended to establish that naval superiority on the surest basis, though
even the religion of the age added its authority to the clearest
political principles in favour of Henry, yet were his enterprises and
his expected discoveries derided with all the insolence of ignorance,
and the bitterness of popular clamour. Barren deserts like Lybia, it was
said, were all that could be found, and a thousand disadvantages, drawn
from these data, were foreseen and foretold. The great mind and better
knowledge of Henry, however, were not thus to be shaken. Twelve years
had elapsed since the discovery of Madeira in unsuccessful endeavours to
carry navigation farther. At length, one of his captains, named
Galianez, in 1434 passed the Cape of Bojador, till then invincible; an
action, says Faria, not inferior to the labours of Hercules.

Galianez, the next year, accompanied by Gonsalez Baldaya, carried his
discoveries many leagues farther. Having put two horsemen on shore to
discover the face of the country, the adventurers, after riding several
hours, saw nineteen men armed with javelins. The natives fled, and the
two horsemen pursued, till one of the Portuguese, being wounded, lost
the first blood that was sacrificed to the new system of commerce. A
small beginning, it soon swelled into oceans, and deluged the eastern
and western worlds. The cruelties of Hernando Cortez, and that more
horrid barbarian, Pizarro,[49] are no more to be charged upon Don Henry
and Columbus, than the villainies of the Jesuits and the horrors of the
Inquisition are to be ascribed to Him who commands us to do to our
neighbour as we would wish our neighbour to do to us.
But, if it be
maintained that he who plans a discovery ought to foresee the miseries
which the vicious will engraft upon his enterprise, let the objector be
told that the miseries are uncertain, while the advantages are real and
sure.

In 1440 Anthony Gonsalez brought some Moors prisoners to Lisbon. These
he took two and forty leagues beyond Cape Bojador, and in 1442 he
returned with his captives. One Moor escaped, but ten blacks of Guinea
and a considerable quantity of gold dust were given in ransom for two
others. A rivulet at the place of landing was named by Gonsalez, Rio del
Oro, or the River of Gold. And the islands of Adeget, Arguim, and De las
Garcas were now discovered.

The negroes of Guinea, the first ever seen in Portugal, and the gold
dust, excited other passions beside admiration. A company was formed at
Lagos, under the auspices of Prince Henry, to carry on a traffic with
the newly discovered countries; and, as the Portuguese considered
themselves in a state of continual hostility with the Moors, about two
hundred of these people, inhabitants of the Islands of Nar and Tider, in
1444, were brought prisoners to Portugal. Next year Gonzalo de Cintra
was attacked by the Moors, fourteen leagues beyond Rio del Oro, where,
with seven of his men, he was killed.

This hostile proceeding displeased Prince Henry, and in 1446 Anthony
Gonsalez and two other captains were sent to enter into a treaty of
peace and traffic with the natives of Rio del Oro, and also to attempt
their conversion. But these proposals were rejected by the barbarians,
one of whom, however, came voluntarily to Portugal, and Juan Fernandez
remained with the natives, to observe their manners and the products of
the country.

In 1447 upwards of thirty ships followed the route of traffic which was
now opened; and John de Castilla obtained the infamy to stand the first
on the list of those names whose villainies have disgraced the spirit of
commerce, and afforded the loudest complaints against the progress of
navigation. Dissatisfied with the value of his cargo, he seized twenty
of the natives of Gomera (one of the Canaries), who had assisted him,
and with whom he was in friendly alliance, and brought them as slaves to
Portugal. But Prince Henry resented this outrage, and having given them
some valuable presents of clothes, restored the captives to freedom and
their native country.

The reduction of the Canaries was also this year attempted; but Spain
having challenged the discovery of these islands, the expedition was
discontinued. In the Canary Islands a singular feudal custom existed;
giving to the chief man, or governor, a temporary right to the person of
every bride in his district.