and besought Our
Lady, whose name the plants bore, that she would guide and set forth the
doings in this discovery to the praise and glory of God and to the
increase of his holy faith."

After passing the Cape of Bojador there was a lull in Portuguese
discovery, the period from 1434 to 1441 being spent in enterprises of
very little distinctness or importance. Indeed, during the latter part
of this period, the Prince was fully occupied with the affairs of
Portugal. In 1437 he accompanied the unfortunate expedition to Tangier,
in which his brother Ferdinand was taken prisoner, who afterward ended
his days in slavery to the Moor. In 1438, King Duarte dying, the
troubles of the regency occupied Prince Henry's attention. In 1441,
however, there was a voyage which led to very important consequences. In
that year Antonio Goncalvez, master of the robes to Prince Henry, was
sent out with a vessel to load it with skins of "sea-wolves," a number
of them having been seen, during a former voyage, in the mouth of a
river about fifty-four leagues beyond Cape Bojador. Goncalvez resolved
to signalize his voyage by a feat that should gratify his master more
than the capture of sea-wolves; and he accordingly planned and executed
successfully an expedition for capturing some Azeneghi Moors, in order,
as he told his companions, to take home "some of the language of that
country." Nuno Tristam, another of Prince Henry's captains, afterward
falling in with Goncalvez, a further capture of Moors was made, and
Goncalvez returned to Portugal with his spoil.

In the same year Prince Henry applied to Pope Martin V, praying that his
holiness would grant to the Portuguese crown all that it could conquer,
from Cape Bojador to the Indies, together with plenary indulgence for
those who should die while engaged in such conquests. The Pope granted
these requests. "And now," says a Portuguese historian, "with this
apostolic grace, with the breath of royal favor, and already with the
applause of the people, the Prince pursued his purpose with more courage
and with greater outlay."

In 1442 the Moors whom Antonio Goncalvez had captured in the previous
year promised to give black slaves in ransom for themselves if he would
take them back to their own country; and the Prince, approving of this,
ordered Goncalvez to set sail immediately, "insisting as the foundation
of the matter, that if Goncalvez should not be able to obtain so many
negroes (as had been m