and queen, and one hundred and feventy of the iflanders.* 1402. court's ex Hitherto, we have had nothing but discoveries, rediscoveries, and invafions of these islands, but now a colonist appears upon the scene. This Béthenwas Juan de Béthencourt a great Norman baron, pedition. lord of St. Martin le Gaillard in the county of Eu, of Béthencourt, of Granville, of Sançerre, and other places in Normandy, and chamberlain to Charles the 6th. of France. Those who are at all familiar with that period, and with the mean and cowardly barbarity which characterised the long continued contests between the rival factions of Orleans and Burgundy, may well imagine that any Frenchman would then be very glad to find a career in some other country. Whatever was the motive of Juan de Béthencourt, he carried out his purpose stoutly. Leaving his young wife, and felling part of his eftate, he embarked at Rochelle in 1402 with men and means for conquering and establishing himself in the Canary Islands. It is not our intention to give a minute description of this expedition. Suffice it to fay that Béthencourt met with fully the usual difficulties, diftreffes, treacheries, and difafters that * Viera, lib. 3, fec. 25. 14.05. belong to this race of enterprizing men. After his arrival at the Canaries, finding his means infufficient, he repaired to the court of Castile, did acts of homage to the king, Enrique the 3rd, and afterwards renewed them to his fon Juan the 2nd, thereby much strengthening the claim which the Spanish monarchs already made to the dominion of these islands. Béthencourt returning to the islands with renewed refources, fubdued the greater part of them, reduced several of the natives to flavery, introduced the Chriftian faith, built churches, and established vaffalage. On the occafion of quitting his colony in A. D. 1405 he called all his vaffals together, and represented to them that he had named for his lieutenant and governor Maciot de Béthencourt his relation; that he himself was going to Spain and to Rome to feek for a bishop for them; and he concluded. his oration with these words: My loved vaffals, great or small, plebeians or nobles, "if you have anything to ask me or to inform me of, if "you find in my conduct anything to complain of, do "not fear to speak, I defire to do favour and justice to "all the world."* The affembly he was addreffing contained none of the flaves he had made. We are told, how * Viera, lib. 4, sec. 20. ever, and that by eye-witneffes, that the poor natives themselves bitterly regretted his departure, and, wading through the water, followed his veffel as far as they could. After his vifit to Spain and to Rome, he returned to his paternal domains in Normandy, where, while meditating another voyage to his colony, he died A. D. 1425. Maciot de Béthencourt ruled for fome time fuccefsfully; but, afterwards, falling into disputes with the bishop, and things going ill with him, Maciot fold his rights to Don Enrique the prince of Portugal, alfo, as it appears, to another person, and afterwards fettled in Madeira. The claims to the government of the Canary Islands were, for many years, in a most entangled state, and the right to the fovereignty over them was a constant ground of dispute between the crowns of Spain and Portugal: all which, fortunately, it is not needful for us to enter upon. Thus ended the enterprize of Juan de Béthencourt, which, though it cannot be faid to have led to any very large or lafting results, yet as it was the first modern attempt of the kind, deferves to be chronicled before we commence with Prince Henry of Portugal's long continued and connected efforts in the fame direction. The events alfo which preceded and accompanied Béthencourt's Birth of Prince enterprize, need to be recorded to show the part which many nations, especially the Spaniards, had in these first discoveries on the Coast of Africa. We now turn to the history of the Portuguese discoveries made, or rather caused to be made, by Prince Henry of Portugal. This prince was Henry of born in 1394. He was the third fon of John Portugal. the First of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster, fifter of Henry the Fourth of England. That good Plantagenet blood on the mother's fide was not, I should think, without avail to a man whofe life was to be spent in infatiate attempts to work out a great idea. This prince was with his father at the taking of Ceuta in 1415. He was especially learned for that age of the world, being skilled in mathematical and geographical knowledge. And it may be noticed here, that the greatest geographical discoveries have been made by men converfant with the book knowledge of their own time. A work, for inftance, often seen in the hands of Columbus, and which his fon mentions as having had much influence with him, was the learned treatise of Cardinal Petro de Aliaco, (Pierre d'Ailly) the " Imago Mundi." But to return to Prince Henry of Portugal. We are told that he had converfed much with those who had made voyages in different parts of the world, and particularly with Moors from Fez and Morocco, fo that he came to hear of the Azenegues, a people bordering on the country of the negroes of Jalof. And now, the first thing for us to do is the fame as it was for Prince Henry, in which we may be fure he was not remifs; namely, to study our maps and charts. Without frequent reference to maps, a narrative like the present forms in our mind only a mirage of names and dates and facts: is wrongly apprehended even while we are regarding it, and foon vanishes away. The map of the world being before us, let us reduce it to the proportions it filled in Prince Henry's time: let us look at our infant world. First, take away those two continents, for so we may almost call them, each much larger than a Europe, to the far West. Then cancel that square maffive-looking piece to the extreme South-Eaft; happily there are no penal settlements there yet. Then turn to Africa: inftead of that form of inverted cone which it presents, and which we now know there are phyfical reafons for its presenting; make a fcimitar fhape of it by running a flightly-curved line from Juba on the Eastern fide to Cape Nam on the Western. Declare all below that line |