n coasters driven out of sight of land by contrary winds;--it may
have been any of these, it must have been some one of them, who found
the rest of the Azores, Terceira or the island of Jesus, St. George,
Graciosa, Fayal, Flores, and Corvo.

Who were the discoverers is absolutely unknown. At this day we have only
a few traces of the first colonisation, but of two things we may be
pretty certain. First, that the Azores were all found and colonised in
Henry's lifetime, and for the most part between 1430 and 1450. Second,
that no definite purpose was formed of pushing discovery beyond this
group across the waste of waters to the west, and so of finding India
from the "left" hand. Henry and all his school were quite satisfied,
quite committed, to the south-east route. By coasting round the
continent, not by venturing across the ocean, they hoped and meant to
find their way to Malabar and Cathay. As to the settlement of these
islands, a copy is still left of Henry's grant of the Captaincy of
Terceira to the Fleming Jacques de Bruges.

The facts of the case were these. Jacques came to the Prince one day
with a little request about the Hawk islands--that "within the memory of
man the aforesaid islands had been under the aggressive lordship of none
other than the Prince, and as the third of these islands called the
island of Jesu Christ, was lying waste, he the said Jacques de Bruges
begged that he might colonise the same. Which was granted to him with
the succession to his daughters, as he had no heirs male."

For Jacques was a rich Fleming, who had come into the Prince's service,
it would seem, with the introduction of the Duchess of Burgundy, Don
Henry's niece. Since then he had married into a noble house of Portugal,
and now he was offering to take upon himself all the charges of his
venture. Such a man was not lightly to be passed over. His design was
encouraged, and more than this his example was followed. An hidalgo
named Sodre--Vincent Gil Sodre--took his family and adherents across to
Terceira, the island of Jesu Christ, and from thence went on and settled
in Graciosa, while another Fleming, Van der Haager, joining Van der
Berge or De Bruges in Terceira with two ships "fitted out at his own
cost and filled with his own people and artisans, whom he had brought to
work as in a new land," tried though unsuccessfully to colonise the
island of St. George.

The first Captain Donatory of Fayal was another Fleming--Job van