To avenge these atrocities, the Moors now gathered in formidable numbers, not merely from the neighbourhood, but from wherever the fame of their wrongs had penetrated; but they were always repulsed by the valiant count, whose exploits are represented as not much inferior to those of the Cid Ruy Diaz, in Valencia. The very exaggerations, however, prove that Dom Pedro was the most valiant knight of a valiant nation. But during three years no formal siege was laid to the place; a circumstance sufficiently explicable by the perpetual struggles for empire among the Mohammedan princes of western Africa. In 1419 the fortress was first invested, and by an army formidable enough to inspire the assailants with the hope of success. In the combats which ensued, the Christians, notwithstanding the loss of some brave captains, were, as usual, victorious; and “a pleasant thing it was,” says the chronicler,[d] “to see our men, like the waters which flowed on the beach, sprinkled with infidel blood.” After some days the siege was raised, with the loss of some thousands on the part of the Africans. But scarcely had the governor time to congratulate himself on this event, before he received news which filled him with apprehension—that a more formidable army, and a fleet from Granada, were preparing to move against him.
He lost no time in soliciting succour from King João, who as readily granted it. Again was the place invested—this time by sea and land; and, as before, the valour of the besieged was almost superhuman. Fearing, however, that it must ultimately surrender, if not more effectually succoured, the king ordered two of his sons—the infantes Henry and João—to sail with a considerable armament. As they approached the place, they perceived that the Mohammedans had landed, and furiously assailed Dom Pedro, who, with his handful of brave companions, was making terrific carnage among them. This formidable host was totally routed; while the infantes took or dispersed the Moorish vessels, commanded by a prince of the royal house of Granada. This splendid success drew the eyes of all Europe towards this extremity of Africa. That a Christian noble, with so few companions in arms, should not only retain possession of a distant fortress against the frequent attacks of great armies, but should triumph over those armies in the open field, would appear incredible, had not equal wonders been exhibited by the knights of some religious orders. The exploits which have been already recorded were frequently equalled in the sequel by this renowned baron. In the subsequent wars, he was greatly aided by his son, a youth of the same dauntless courage as himself, who made frequent incursions into the Moorish territory, and never failed to return with abundance of spoil.
[1419-1430 A.D.]
During these years, the king was constantly employed in the duties of administration. As he advanced in years, his sense of justice appears to have greatly improved; at least we hear no more of the violent acts which disgraced his early days, and which will forever tarnish his memory.[e]
He re-established his finances by an economy pervading his government and household. He spent little in pomp and splendour; lived frugally, and associated upon an easy footing with the friends of his youth. He was wont to say that conversation was the cheapest of pleasures; and he introduced literary pursuits amongst his courtiers. When he had replenished his exhausted treasury, João made abundant compensation to those whom the inevitable expenses of war had obliged him to offend by revoking the ample donations, with which, upon first receiving the crown, he had recompensed the services that had helped to place it upon his brow. But after satisfying these just claims, João neither lavished his money upon friends and favourites, nor hoarded it in his coffers.
PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR
[1402-1418 A.D.]
A certain employment of João’s wealth ultimately produced far more glory and power, as well as opulence, to his kingdom, than his Mauretanian conquests. His third son, Henry, was the first projector of those remote maritime enterprises and geographical discoveries that opened new channels to the commerce of Europe, poured the riches of the Indies into Portugal, exalted the reputation and consequently the energies of her sons, brought immense realms in Asia and America under her sceptre, and temporarily elevated her to a rank amongst the nations of Europe altogether disproportionate to her natural extent and population.
Prince Henry was grand-master of the order of knights of Christ, instituted by King Diniz, upon the abolition of the Templars, to do battle constantly with the Mohammedans. The grand-master had accompanied his father to the siege of Ceuta, and there highly distinguished himself even beyond his brothers; which circumstance, combining with his strong sense of the duties of his sacred office, inspired him with an irrepressible desire to conquer and convert. But expeditions of the kind he meditated against Mohammedan misbelievers, whether in Spain or Mauretania, could only be undertaken by the authority and under the control of the king, and the infante in consequence turned his thoughts towards the more distant heathen. His studious disposition and especial taste for geography, astronomy, and mathematics also contributed, in all probability, not a little to give his schemes of conquest and conversion that direction. These sciences Dom Henry assiduously cultivated at Sagres, a seaport town he had himself founded near Cape St. Vincent in Algarve, where he drew around him learned men, travellers, and mariners. When he had speculatively satisfied himself of the possibility of sailing round Africa, of which, at that time, little beyond the northern coast was known, and of thus reaching the East Indies, he built and collected vessels in the harbour of Sagres, and sent them forth upon voyages of discovery. The despatch of the first two was determined so suddenly one morning, that it was believed the prince had been favoured with an especial revelation upon the subject during the preceding night, a mark of divine favour of which his great devotion, and the virginal purity of his morals, were judged to render him worthy. Dom Henry fitted out these first expeditions at his own expense; but the king soon entered into his son’s views, and took the principal charge upon himself. Navigation was then still almost in its infancy. The name of Cape Nun had been given to the southernmost African promontory yet known, and terrified the imagination of the ignorant almost as much by its very sound as by the thousand superstitious terrors connected with all beyond it, particularly with the torrid zone, then supposed to be actually uninhabitable from heat. For many years Dom Henry’s mariners advanced only a few leagues past the dreaded cape, and Portugal resounded with murmurs against the waste of men and money occasioned by the infante’s mania for discovery. But Dom Henry persevered, and his father countenanced him. Gradually his captains grew more enterprising, emboldened in some measure by the assistance his astronomical science afforded them. The first, and, during King João’s life, only great fruit of these labours was the rediscovery and settlement of the island of Madeira, about the year 1418. But far from appeasing the popular clamour, this only increased it; the colonising of the island being regarded as a frightful drain upon the population. Nearly about the same time the Canaries were accidentally discovered by an English ship, driven from her course. In 1402 a private adventurer, a Frenchman, named De Bethencourt, with a mixed French and Spanish crew, conquered the savage natives, and took possession of some of these islands, which his heirs afterwards sold to Prince Henry.[h]
