The death of Prince Henry did much to check maritime exploration for exploration’s sake, and for the purpose of discovering the direct route to India; but the slave trade and the general trade with the Guinea Coast were growing into importance, and the results of the labours of the early Portuguese navigators were not forgotten. Affonso V. was more bent on his Moorish expeditions and his schemes upon the crown of Castile, than upon maritime discoveries; but, nevertheless, something of importance was done during his reign in strengthening the hold of the Portuguese upon the part of the African coast already known, and in making their topographical information more exact. What Affonso did was done rather to improve trade or protect it for the benefit of his own exchequer than for love of exploration. It was for these reasons that he built a fort on the island of Arguin, near Cabo Branco, which became the depôt for the trade with Guinea, and eventually he granted the monopoly of the trade with the African coast to Fernan Gomes for five hundred crusados a year. This enterprising merchant employed able captains, of whom the chief were João de Santarem, Pedro Escobar, and Lopo Gonçalves, who worked their way further along the coast; and in 1471, in which year Fernando Po discovered the islands of St. Thomas, Fernando Bom and Anno Bom, they crossed the equator, and explored as far as Cape St. Catherine.
John II., the successor of Affonso V., set the seal upon Prince Henry’s labours. He it was who built the fort of Elmina, and took the title of Lord of Guinea; and it was in his reign that Diogo Cão or Cam discovered the Congo in 1484, and Bartholomeu Diaz reached Algoa Bay in 1486, and doubled the cape, which he called Cabo Tormentoso, or Stormy Cape, from the winds he met there, but which his sovereign, presaging from this fortunate voyage the future glory of his country, called the Cape of Good Hope. John II., like Prince Henry, was fated not to see the fulfilment of his dearest hopes, and it was not until the fifteenth century was within three years of its close that Vasco da Gama made his way from Lisbon to Calicut.
While, in political life and commercial prosperity, the people of Portugal had been at home becoming more civilized, more self-controlled, and more wealthy during the fifteenth century, its sailors had been growing more daring and enterprising. In the sixteenth century the Portuguese were to have their reward. Lisbon was to take the place of Venice as the depôt for all the products of the East; the trade of Persia, India, China, Japan, and the Spice Islands, was to fall into their hands; they were to produce great captains and writers, and were to become the wealthiest nation in Europe. But that same sixteenth century was to see the Portuguese power sink, and the independence, won by Affonso Henriques and maintained by John “the Great,” vanish away; it was to see Portugal, which had been the greatest nation of its time, decline in its fame, and become a mere province of Spain. Hand in hand with increased wealth came corruption and depopulation, and within a single century after the epoch-making voyage of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese people, tamed by the Inquisition, were to show no sign of their former hardihood. This is the lesson that the Story of Portugal in the sixteenth century teaches, that the greatness of a nation depends not upon its wealth and commercial prosperity, but upon the thews and sinews and the stout hearts of its people.
