tries which
should be discovered as far as India, together with India itself, and
granted several privileges and indulgences to the churches which Henry
had built in his new regions, and to the men engaged in the navigation
for discovery. By this bull all other princes were forbidden to encroach
upon the conquests of the Portuguese, on pain of the censures incurred
by the crime of usurpation.

The approbation of the pope, the sight of men, whose manners and
appearance were so different from those of Europeans, and the hope of
gain from golden regions, which has been always the great incentive to
hazard and discovery, now began to operate with full force. The desire
of riches and of dominion, which is yet more pleasing to the fancy,
filled the court of the Portuguese prince with innumerable adventurers
from very distant parts of Europe. Some wanted to be employed in the
search after new countries, and some to be settled in those which had
been already found.

Communities now began to be animated by the spirit of enterprise, and
many associations were formed for the equipment of ships, and the
acquisition of the riches of distant regions, which, perhaps, were
always supposed to be more wealthy, as more remote. These undertakers
agreed to pay the prince a fifth part of the profit, sometimes a greater
share, and sent out the armament at their own expense.

The city of Lagos was the first that carried on this design by
contribution. The inhabitants fitted out six vessels, under the command
of Lucarot, one of the prince's household, and soon after fourteen more
were furnished for the same purpose, under the same commander; to those
were added many belonging to private men, so that, in a short time,
twenty-six ships put to sea in quest of whatever fortune should present.

The ships of Lagos were soon separated by foul weather, and the rest,
taking each its own course, stopped at different parts of the African
coast, from cape Blanco to cape Verd. Some of them, in 1444, anchored at
Gomera, one of the Canaries, where they were kindly treated by the
inhabitants, who took them into their service against the people of the
isle of Palma, with whom they were at war; but the Portuguese, at their
return to Gomera, not being made so rich as they expected, fell upon
their friends, in contempt of all the laws of hospitality and
stipulations of alliance, and, making several of them prisoners and
slaves, set sail for Lisbon.

The Cana