th of time which had been employed in making
so very small progress, he shewed himself to have looked steadily
forwards to the full accomplishment of his hopes of discovering the route
by sea from Europe to India, around the still unknown shores of Southern
Africa. The date of this papal grant does not certainly appear. De Barros
and Lafitau are of opinion that it must have been posterior to 1440;
Purchas places it in 1441; and de Guyon in 1444. But Martin V. died in
1431; and these writers seem to have confounded the original grant from
that pontiff, with subsequent confirmations by his successors Eugenius IV.
Nicholas V. and Sextus IV[9].

The gradual progress of these discoveries were interrupted for a time by
an unsuccessful attempt of Edward I. or _Duarte_, king of Portugal, to
gain possession of Tangier in the kingdom of Fez. But the history of this
war, in which the Portuguese arms suffered much misfortune and dishonour,
are quite irrelevant to the present subject. The plague likewise, which
raged at Lisbon in 1438, contributed to the suspension of the patriotic
enterprizes of Don Henry. At length, in 1440, Don Henry resumed his
project of maritime discovery, and dispatched two caravels from Sagres,
which were forced back by unfavourable weather, apparently without even
reaching the coast of Africa.

In 1441, a young officer named Antonio Gonzales made a voyage in a small
vessel, with a crew of twenty-one men, to the island where so great a
number of sea wolves had been seen in the former voyage of Alphonzo
Gonzales Baldaya in 1435. In this voyage Alphonzo Gotterez, a gentleman
of the bed-chamber to Don Henry, acted as secretary, and the two
adventurers were instructed to endeavour to obtain an account of the
country and its inhabitants, and to procure a cargo of the skins of the
seals or sea wolves, that the voyage might not be entirely destitute of
some commercial advantages. After accomplishing this part of his
instructions, Gonzales determined to use his utmost efforts for procuring
some of the inhabitants of the country to carry back with him to Sagres.
For this purpose, he landed at the beginning of the night with nine
associates, and having advanced about ten miles into the interior,
discovered a native following a camel. The sudden appearance of the
Portuguese rendered the astonished Moor perfectly motionless, and before
he could recover from his surprize he was seized by Gotterez. On their
return to the