But the glory of their little army consisted in one gallant stranger, Sir Thomas Stukeley of England.—This brave adventurer had left his native country from the restlessness of a disordered but fine mind, and hearing of Sebastian’s intended attack upon the Moors, came to offer his services at the head of a band of noble Italians.
The chivalric romance of Stukeley captivated our youthful hero; he found in him that ardour of enterprize, and those unquenchable hopes, which he had hitherto believed his own peculiar property. While they conversed together, both burned with the same fire; prudential calculations were equally despised by each; danger only, possessed charms for them, and success, unless torn from the arms of destruction, was to them destitute of honour.
Stukeley’s reason had once been rudely assaulted by a domestic calamity; and though it still remained uninjured in the eyes of most men, deeper observers beheld a lamentable chasm in his once perfect mind:—an exuberance of imagination had usurped the place of the reasoning faculty; while his heart, true to its nature and to its habits, fed this imagination with visions of exalted but often hazardous virtue.
The wild inspiration of his countenance, breathing goodness and greatness, never suggested to Sebastian the idea of an unsettled intellect: what might have appeared feverish ravings in another, were sublimed by the magnificent eloquence of Stukeley into theories of god-like excellence, and heroic exploit.—The young monarch listened to these effusions till their magic transformed impossibilities into certainties: hitherto his character impelled others; now, it was impelled in its turn, and borne with resistless force before the mighty character of Stukeley.
With such a coadjutor, the King of Portugal was enabled to give an additional impulse to the martial spirit of his kingdom, Stukeley was a zealous catholic like himself, and the destruction of the infidels was equally the object of his wishes.
An opportunity of prosperously invading Africa, now presented itself. One of the Moorish princes who had been dethroned by his uncle Muley Moloch, King of Fez, Morocco, and Tarradunt, after vainly soliciting the aid of Mahometan courts, came as a suppliant to Portugal: he pleaded his rights and his distress; offering the monarch in lieu of assistance, several valuable territories along the sea-coast.
Sebastian’s zeal for the extension of Christianity would not suffer him to be contented with a mere accession of territory: he dictated new terms; stipulating for the half of whatever was re-conquered, and for the enlargement of every Christian found enslaved amongst the Moors. But the leading article in their treaty was an agreement that no Christian hereafter should be forced into the profession of Mahometanism, and that the Emperor of Morocco should make a law for this purpose, under the penalty of death to any of his subjects who should disobey.
By this arrangement Sebastian insured to himself a substantial hold on Africa; and though aware of the small probability there was that Muley Hamet should fulfil the latter part of their treaty, he was now conscious of possessing in this article, (if infringed) a justifiable plea for turning his arms against so faithless an ally.
On completing this compact with the Moor, and receiving some mercenaries from Germany and Flanders, the King called a general assembly of his nobles and ministers.—After eloquently detailing his motives for taking arms, and the advantages likely to result from it to all Christendom, he proceeded to say, that he convened his council, not to ask their advice, but to instruct them in his aim, and to receive their concurrence. He called God to witness, that his first and dearest aim was the preservation of unnumbered souls who now groaned under the sinful yoke of a detestable religion, and perhaps wanted only to live under a Christian government, and be taught by Christian teachers, to awake from their delusion: he pathetically painted the miseries of his captive countrymen to whom the Portuguese arms were about to give freedom: he then commented on the political advantage of acquiring a maritime frontier in Africa for the protection of their trade with the gold coast; and lastly, he avowed a strong desire for honorable distinction. His impetuous youth here dwelt delighted, and laid claim to some indulgence for this last infirmity of noble minds: he finished an animated confession of that infirmity, by these words from Cicero.
“Should we in the pursuits of virtue have any of its rewards in view, the noblest of all, is glory: this alone compensates the shortness of life, by the immortality of fame; by this we are still present when absent from the world, and survive even after death. By the steps of glory, in short, mortals mount to heaven.”