This is not fancy. It is simply impossible to draw any other conclusion from the original accounts of these voyages in Azurara's chronicle, for Azurara himself, though one of Henry's first converts, a man who realised something of the grandeur of his master's schemes and their reach beyond a merely commercial ideal through discovery to empire, yet preserves in the speeches and actions of captains and seamen alike, proof enough of the thoroughly commonplace aims of most of the first discoverers.
On the other hand, the strength of the movement lay of course in the few exceptions. As long as all or nearly all the instruments employed were simply buccaneers, with a single eye to trade profits, discovery could not advance very fast or very far. Till the real meaning of the Prince's life had impressed his nearest followers with something of his own spirit, there could be no exploration, except by accident, though without this background of material gain no national interest could have been enlisted in exploration at all.
Real progress in this case was by the slow increase of that inner circle which really shared Henry's own ambition, of that group of men who went out, not to make bargains or do a little killing, but to carry the flag of Portugal and of Christ farther than it had ever been planted before, "according to the will of the Lord Infant." And as these men were called to the front, and only as they were there at all, was there any rapid advance. If two sailors, Diego Cam and Bartholomew Diaz, could within four years, in two voyages, explore the whole south-west coast of Africa from the Equator to the Cape of Tempests or of Good Hope, was it not absurd that the earlier caravels, after Bojador was once passed should hang so many years round the north-west shores of the Sahara?
Even some of the more genuine discoverers, the most trusted of the Prince's household, men like Gil Eannes, the first who saw the coasts beyond the terrible Bojador, or Diniz Diaz, or Antam Gonsalvez, or Nuno Tristam, as they come before us in Azurara's chronicle, are more like their men than their master.
He thought of the slaves they brought home "with unspeakable pleasure, as to the saving of their souls, which but for him, would have been for ever lost." They thought a good deal more, like the crowd that gathered at the slave market in Lagos, of the "distribution of the captives," and of the money they would get for each. At those sales, which Azurara describes so vividly, Henry had the bearing of one who cared little for amassing plunder, and was known, once and again, to give away his fifth of the spoil, "for his spoil was chiefly in the success of his great wishes." But his suite seems to have been as keenly on the look-out for such favours as their lord was easy in bestowing them.
To return to Lançarote's voyage:
"For that the Infant knew, by certain Moors that Nuno Tristam had carried off, that in the Isle of Naar, in the Bay of Arguin, and in the parts thereabout, were more than two hundred souls," the six caravels began with a descent on that island. Five boats were launched and thirty men in them, and they set off from the ships about sunset. And rowing all that night, we are told, they came about the time of dawn to the island that they sought. And as day was breaking they got up to a Moorish village close to the shore, where were living all the people in the island. At sight of this the boats' crews drew up, and the leaders consulted whether to go on or turn back. It was decided to attack. Thirty "Portugals" ought to be a match for five or six times as many natives; the sailors landed and rushed upon the villagers and "saw the Moors with their women and children coming out of their huts as fast as they could, when they caught sight of their enemy; and our men, crying out 'St. James, St. George, Portugal,' fell upon them, killing and taking all they could. There you might have seen mothers catch up their children, husbands their wives, each one trying to fly as best he could. Some plunged into the sea, others thought to hide themselves in the corners of their hovels, others hid their children underneath the shrubs that grew about there, where our men found them.
"And at last our Lord God, who gives to all a due reward, to our men gave that day a victory over their enemies, in recompence for all their toil in His service, for they took, what of men, women, and children, one hundred and sixty-five, without counting the slain."
Then finding from the captives that there were other well-peopled islands near at hand, they raided these for more prisoners. In their next descent they could not catch any men, but of women and little boys, not yet able to run, they seized seventeen or eighteen; soon after this they did meet the "Moormen bold," who were drawing together on all sides to defend themselves; a great power of three hundred savages chased another raiding party to their boats.
That the whole expedition had no thought of discovery was plain enough from the fact that Lançarote did not try to go beyond the White Cape (Blanco), which had been already passed several times, but turned back directly he found the hunting grounds becoming deserted, and a descent producing no prize, except one girl, who had chosen to go to sleep when the rest of the people fled up country at the first sight of the Christian boats.