The merit and glory of these wonderful achievements are unquestionably due to the Portuguese nation, and the first and principal share to the sublime genius of their illustrious prince, the infant DON HENRY, Duke of Viseo and Grand Master of the order of Christ, whose enlarged mind first planned the fitting out of maritime expeditions for discovery, and by the imitation of whose example all subsequent discoveries have been accomplished. Every thing of the kind before his time was isolated or accidental, and every subsequent attempt has been pursued on scientific or known principles, which he invented and established. Although America was discovered by Columbus, in the service of Spain, some years before the Portuguese were able to accomplish their long sought route to India; and although the discovery of America was performed infinitely quicker than that of southern Africa and the route to India, Columbus having accomplished his design at the very first attempt, and even without any previous knowledge of the countries he went in search of; while the endeavours of the Portuguese occupied a great number of years in almost fruitless attempts, and extremely tedious progression; yet Don Henry first set on foot the navigation of the ocean through unknown seas, and inspired, other nations with the idea of making discoveries of distant and unexplored regions; and ultimately great as were the discoveries of Columbus, they may be said to have been accidentally made in the erroneous attempt to go by a nearer route to the regions of which Don Henry and his successors had long been in search.

These attempts of the Portuguese had been continued for nearly fourscore years before any of their neighbours seem to have entertained the most distant idea of engaging in foreign discoveries, even viewing their endeavours as downright knight-errantry, proceeding from a distempered imagination, as well in the first promoter as in those who continued to prosecute his scheme. In a word, the relation of these discoveries forms one of the most curious portions of modern history, as comprizing a great number of the most extraordinary transactions that ever happened in any period of the world. For this reason they are well worthy of being particularly narrated, that the curious may be made acquainted with every successive step in such important enterprizes, and by what almost insensible degrees such vast undertakings were ultimately accomplished. And as the intercourse of Europeans has operated a great change in the countries to which they penetrated, and upon their original inhabitants, so that both now appear in a very different light from what they did before these expeditions and discoveries; therefore, every circumstance belonging to these transactions deserves the most serious notice.

John 1. of Portugal, married Philippa, the eldest daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son to Edward III. of England, by whom he had several sons, of whom Don Henry was the fifth. After serving with great bravery under his father at the capture of Ceuta, he was raised to the dukedom of Viseo, and was sent back with a large reinforcement to preserve the conquest to which his courage had largely contributed. During his continuance in command at Ceuta, he acquired much information, by occasional converse with some Moors, relative to the seas and coasts of Western Africa, which raised and encouraged the project of maritime discoveries; and these became afterwards the favourite and almost exclusive pursuit of his active and enlarged mind. From the Moors he obtained intelligence respecting the Nomadic tribes who border upon and pervade the great desert, and of the nations of the Jaloofs, whose territories are conterminous with the desert on the north, and Guinea to the south. By one ingenious author255, he has been supposed instigated to his first attempts at maritime discovery, by the desire of finding a way by sea to those countries from whence the Moors brought ivory and gold dust across the desert. It unfortunately happens that we have no record of the particular voyages themselves, and are therefore reduced to the necessity of giving the relation of this great discovery historically from the best remaining sources of information. The writings of Cada Morto, which will be found in the sequel, form a pleasing exception to this desideratum in the history and progress of early navigation and discovery.

Three years before the reduction of Ceuta, the Duke of Visco had sent a vessel in 1412 to explore the western coast of Africa, being the first voyage of discovery undertaken by the Portuguese, or by any other nation in modern times. The commander was instructed to endeavour to follow the western coast of Africa, to the southward of Cape Chaunar, called by the Portuguese mariners Cape Nao, Non, or Nam, which, extending itself from the foot of Mount Atlas, had hitherto been the non plus ultra or impassable limit of European navigation, and had accordingly received its ordinary name from a negative term in the Portuguese language, as implying that there was no navigation beyond; and respecting which a proverbial saying was then current, of the following import:

Whoe'er would pass the Cape of Non Shall turn again; or else be gone.

The success of this earliest voyage, fitted out for the purpose of discovery, is not recorded; but Don Henry continued to send some vessels every year to the same coast, with the same instructions of endeavouring to explore the coast beyond Cape Non. Not daring to trust themselves beyond sight of land, the mariners crept timorously along the coast, and at length reached Cape Bojador, only sixty leagues, or 180 miles beyond Cape Non. This cape, which stretches boldly out into the ocean, from which circumstance it derives its name256, filled the Portuguese mariners with terror and amazement; owing to the shoals by which it is environed for the space of six leagues, being perpetually beaten by a lofty and tremendous surge, which precluded them, from all possibility of proceeding beyond it in their ordinary manner of creeping along the coast; and they dared not to stretch out into the open sea in quest of smoother water, lest, losing sight of land altogether, they might wander in the trackless ocean, and be unable to find their way home. It is not impossible that they might contemplate the imaginary terrors of the torrid zone, as handed down from some of the ancients, with all its burning soil and scorching vapours; and they might consider the difficulties of Cape Bojador as a providential bar or omen, to warn and oppose them against proceeding to their inevitable destruction. They accordingly measured back their wary steps along the African coast, and returned to Portugal, where they gave an account of their proceedings to Don Henry, in which, of course, the dangers of the newly discovered cape would not be diminished in their narrative257.

Returning from Ceuta, where his presence was no longer necessary, and where he had matured his judgment by intercourse with, various learned men whom his bounty had attracted into Africa, and having enlarged his views by the perusal of every work which tended to illustrate the discoveries which he projected, Don Henry fixed his residence at the romantic town of Sagres, in the neighbourhood of Cape St Vincent, where he devoted his leisure to the study of mathematics, astronomy, cosmography, and the theory of navigation, and even established a school or academy for instructing his countrymen in these sciences, the parents of commerce, and the sure foundations of national prosperity. To assist him in the prosecution of these his favourite studies, he invited, from Majorca, a person named Diego, or James, who was singularly skilful in the management of the instruments then employed for making astronomical observations at sea, and in the construction of nautical charts. Some traces of nautical discoveries along the western coast of Africa still remained in ancient authors; particularly of the reported voyages of Menelaus, Hanno, Eudoxus, and others. From an attentive consideration of these, Don Henry and his scientific coadjutor were encouraged to hope for the accomplishment of important discoveries in that direction; and they were certainly incited in these views by the rooted enmity which had so long rankled among the Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal against the Moors, who had formerly expelled their ancestors from the greatest part of the peninsula, and with whom they had waged an incessant war of several centuries in recovering the country from their grasp.