Henry the Navigator
(From an old print)
[1418-1437 A.D.]
Of Prince Henry it has been said that, to his “enlightened foresight and perseverance the human race is indebted for the maritime discovery, within one century, of more than half the globe.” His funds were drawn from the large revenues of the order of Christ, and the Moors had told him much of the riches of interior Africa and the Guinea coast. He was the victim of unusual opposition and ridicule, as was Columbus, but, like him, was impervious to both. His personality is strongly to credit for the success of his couriers, for, as his biographer Major[g] has said: “Had that failure and that ridicule produced on Prince Henry the effect which they ordinarily produce on other men, it is impossible to say what delays would have occurred before these mighty events would have been realised; for it must be borne in mind that the ardour, not only of his own sailors, but of surrounding nations, owed its impulse to this pertinacity of purpose in him.” It is to be charged against Prince Henry that he began the slave-trade, which meant so much of shame to the world. It is pleasant to recall that it was he who, forsaking the usual path of exploration, the land, began to seek the wealth of Araby and India by the water-ways and, beginning that fever of adventurous curiosity that opened new worlds south and west, with him began the age of discovery.[a]
By João I the era of Cæsar was abolished in Portugal, and the Christian mode of computation adopted. He died in 1433.
THE REIGN OF DUARTE OR EDWARD (1433-1438 A.D.)
The reign of Duarte [or Edward[149]], though short, was doomed to be more disastrous than that of any preceding monarch. The first great calamity was the plague which raged during the whole of his reign, and which lamentably thinned the population. But a greater was an expedition against Tangier, the preparations for which oppressed his people, and the result of which filled the kingdom with murmurs.
The restless ambition of the king’s brother, Ferdinand, hurried him into this disastrous enterprise. This infante had been too young to share in the glorious conquests of Ceuta: and had not, like Pedro or Henry, obtained celebrity either by travelling or science. But he burned for distinction as much as either and proposed an African expedition. The king seems, however, to have entertained very honourable scruples as to the justice of the warfare in which he was about to engage. He proposed the subject to his theologians and the pope. The chief of the Christian world, with more reason than has dictated some papal decisions, replied that there were only two cases in which war against misbelievers could be lawfully undertaken: (1) when they were in possession of territories which had belonged to Christians, and which the latter sought to recover; (2) when by piracy or war, or any other means, they injured or insulted the true believers. In other cases, proceeded his holiness, hostilities are unjust: the elements, earth, air, fire, and water, were created for all; and to deprive any creature without just cause of those necessary things, was a violation of natural right. There was, however, one point which the pontiff omitted to notice: the obligations contracted by every Catholic sovereign, and still more solemnly by every military order, to advance the glory of God—in other words to convert or to destroy the heathen. This consideration removed the scruples of Duarte, and the expedition was resolved.
[1437 A.D.]
The inexperience which governed the preparations, and the accidental hindrances which impeded their completion, were regarded as melancholy omens by the people. The armament sailed on August 22nd, 1437, and on the 26th arrived before Ceuta, a place which the heroic governor and his no less heroic son had continued to defend with the same success. The two infantes Henry and Ferdinand, who commanded the present expedition, perceived that instead of fourteen thousand men, the number ordered by the king, they had no more than six thousand. They were advised to solicit and wait for a considerable reinforcement, but with their usual impatience they resolved to proceed to Tangier—Henry by land, and Ferdinand by sea, so as to co-operate with each other. The former reached Tangier without accident on the 23rd day of September, and found that his brother had arrived before him. The Portuguese immediately encamped before the place, which was defended by Salat ben Salat, former governor of Ceuta, with seven thousand Moors. But as if every measure of this ill-concerted expedition were doomed to be at once imbecile and unsuccessful, after sustaining a heavy loss the besiegers, finding that their scaling-ladders were too short, were compelled to retreat with shame from the foot of the ramparts. Before others could be procured from Ceuta, the Moors of Fez and Morocco, amounting, we are gravely told, in numbers to ten thousand horse, and eighty thousand infantry, advanced to raise the siege.[150] Instead, however, of being alarmed at this prodigious force, Henry with four thousand of his valiant troops hastened to give them battle; but so great was the dread which this heroic little band had struck into that immense host, that none of the misbelievers daring to wait for the onset, all escaped with precipitation over the neighbouring hills! But as their numbers soon increased by new accessions to 130,000 men,[151] they returned, and this time fought with courage. After a struggle of some hours this vast force yielded to the impetuousity of the infante Ferdinand and fled, leaving some thousands dead on the field! These wondrous fables are not enough. Indignant at their repeated losses of their brethren, the kings of northwestern Africa combined the whole of the respective forces, and marched towards the place. The surprise of Henry was great on seeing the neighbouring hills moving with life; the number of enemies on this occasion, we are veraciously assured, being sixty thousand cavalry, and seven hundred thousand foot![152] On contemplating, however, the dense and widely extended ranks of the Moslems, even he acknowledged that to withstand such a host would be temerity.