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."


ANTONIO GONCALVEZ AND HIS CAPTURE OF MOORS

The old world had now obtained a glimpse beyond Cape Bojador. The fearful
"outstretcher" had no longer much interest for them, being a thing that
was overcome, and which was to descend from an impossibility to a
landmark, from which, by degrees, they would almost silently steal down
the coast, counting their miles by thousands, until Vasco de Gama should
boldly carry them round to India. But now came stormy times for the
Portuguese kingdom, and the troubles of the regency occupied the prince's
attention to the exclusion of cosmography.

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,
at the mouth of a river about a hundred and fifty miles 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 seizing some Azeneghi
Moors, in order, as he told his companions, to take home "some of the
language of that country." Tristam, another of Prince Henry's captains,
afterwards falling in with Goncalvez, a further capture of Moors was made,
and Goncalvez returned to Portugal with the spoil. This voyage seems to
have prompted the application which Prince Henry made, in the same year,
to Pope Martin the Fifth, praying that his holiness would grant to the