of converfion. The old negro king foon grew a little cold towards Chriftianity, difliking much its monogamic rules. He had two fons: the elder approving and the other disapproving of the new faith. The king himself inclined to his pagan younger fon and the other was difinherited. On the death of the old monarch, the younger fon fuddenly attacked the other who had only about him thirty seven followers, Portuguese and negroes. However, under the Chriftian banner and probably with fome little aid of Christian discipline, the elder vanquished his younger brother Christiani- with all his hoft; became king, and did his best to establish Christianity throughout his dominions.

ty in Congo.

This king of Congo reigned fifty years; he was not only a warm favourer of Christianity, but himself, an active preacher, having qualified himself by learning the Portuguese language and ftudying the Scriptures. He fent his children and grandchildren over to Portugal; had them well taught both in Latin and Portuguese; and of his own lineage there were two bishops in his kingdom. Barros tells us, that all these things were done at the expense of the kings of Portugal.* A very noble work it was of theirs and in the

* Barros, dec. 1, lib. 3, cap. 10.

present state of that kingdom, these are the works which may confole the Portuguese nation and their rulers with a not unbecoming recollection of past greatness, and, perhaps, reanimate them to great deeds again.

We may now stop in our task of tracing Portuguese discovery on the coast of Africa. We have feen it quietly making its way for seventy years, from Cape Nam to the Cape of Good Hope, some seven thousand miles. This long courfe of discovery has been almost entirely thrown into shade by the more daring and brilliant discovery of America, which we have now to enter upon. Yet these doings on the African coast had in them all the energy, perfeverance, and courage which distinguished American discovery. Prince Henry himself was hardly a less perfonage than Columbus. They had different elements to contend in. But the man whom princely wealth and pofition, and the temptation to intrigue which there must have been in the then ftate of the Portuguese court, never induced to fwerve from the one purpose which he maintained for forty years, unfhaken by popular clamour for or against him, however forely vexed he might be with inward doubts and mifgivings; who "fcorned delights and lived

"laborious days," to devote himself to this one purpose--enduring the occafional short-comings of his agents with that forbearance which springs from a care for the enterprise in hand, fo deep as to control private vexation (the very fame motive which made Columbus bear fo mildly with infult and contumely from his followers),—such a man is worthy to be put in comparison with the other great discoverer who worked out his enterprise through poverty, neglect, fore travail and the viciffitudes of courts. Moreover we must not forget that Prince Henry was undoubtedly the father of modern geographical discovery, and that the result of his exertions must have given much impulfe to Columbus, if it did not first move him to his great undertaking. Having faid fo much in favour of Prince Henry, we must not omit to fpeak highly of the contemporary Portuguese monarchs who seem to have done their part in African discovery with much vigour, without jealousy of Prince Henry, and with good intent; and I would wish to include in fome part of this praise his many brave captains.

The rediscovery of America (I say << redifcovery," because I do not doubt that it was dif covered by the Northmen in the ninth and tenth centuries,) just at the time when the whole of

the western coaft of Africa had been made out
by the Portuguese, appears to us, humanly
speaking, to have furnished a most inopportune
conjuncture for evil. Had not America afforded
a market for flaves, we hardly fee where else
it could have grown up, and if it had not
grown up then, legitimate commerce would have point be
Chicke
come in its place, and prevented any fuch trade.olare late
Black flaves might have been for fome time ag
favourite part of the grandeur of a great houfe-
hold, but we do not fee how they could have converts in
occupied a country already stocked with hardy
labourers, fitted for the foil, as was the cafe with
Europe. Ca da Mofto has told us that in
1455 A.D., the export of flaves was between seven
and eight hundred yearly. Seeing how careless
people are in the use of numbers, fo that fhrewd
men of the world mostly divide by two or three
the account in numbers of everything they hear,
except men's accounts of their own debts and
loffes, it is not improbable that Ca da Mosto gives
us an exaggerated statement of the number of
flaves exported, which at the most is but a small
affair indeed, when compared with the immense
exportations of modern days. Moreover, from
what is mentioned of the voyages fince that time
to the one we are now speaking of, i. e. from 1455

to 1492, it may be concluded that the trade in flaves had fallen off, so little are they mentioned, while at the fame time we have figns of other articles of commerce engaging the attention of the Portuguese.*

Leaving now for a while all mention of Portuguese affairs, we commence the chapter of that man's doings whom we last heard of incidentally as fon-in-law of Pereftrelo and living at Porto Santo; but who is now about to become one of the few names which carry on from period. to period the tidings of the world's great story, as beacon fires upon the mountain tops. There is a peculiar fascination in the account of fuch a doing as the discovery of America, which cannot be done any more, or anything like it,— which stands alone in the doings of the world. We naturally expect to find fomething quite peculiar in the man who did it, who was indeed one of the great spirits of the earth, but still of

* Precedieron otros a eftos; como la cofta de donde vino la primera malagueta: Faria y Soufa, tom. 1, part 1, cap. 2. El Rey D. Juan II, que fuccediò a fu Padre D. Alonso cõfiderando que en la tierra nuevamente conocida avia riquezas que aumentavan fus rentas, y viendo difpoficion en fus habitantes para admitir nueftra ley, ordenó que fe levantaffe una fortaleza en'aquella parte adonde se hazia el refcate del oro que llamaron de la Mina.--Faria y Soufa, tom. 1, part 1, cap. 3.