thing is an affair of
vengeance, and thus Lancarote, in the great voyage of 1445, coolly
proposes to turn back at Cape Blanco, without an attempt at discovery of
any sort, "because the purpose of the voyage was now accomplished." A
village had been burnt, a score of natives had been killed, and twice as
many taken. Revenge was satisfied.

It was only here and there that much was said about the Prince's purpose
of exploration, of finding the western Nile or, Prester John, or the way
round Africa to India; most of the sailors, both men and officers, seem
to know that this, or something towards this, is the "will of their
Lord," but it is very few who start for discovery only, and still fewer
who go straight on, turning neither to right hand nor left, till they
have got well beyond the farthest of previous years, and added some
piece of new knowledge to the map of the known world out of the blank of
the unknown.

What terrified ignorance had done before, greed did now, and the last
hindrance was almost worse than the first. So one might say,
impatiently, looking at the great expense, the energy, and time and life
spent on the voyages of this time, and especially of the years 1444-8.
More than forty ships sail out, more than nine hundred captives are
brought home, and the new lands found are all discovered by three or
four explorers. National interest seems awakened to very little purpose.
But what explains the slow progress of discovery, explains also the
fact that any progress, however slow, was made at all, apart from the
personal action of Henry himself. Without the mercantile interest, the
Prince's death would have been the end and ruin of his schemes for many
a year.

But for the hope of adventure and of profitable plunder, and the
certainty of reward; but for the assurance, so to say, of such and such
a revenue on the ventures of the time, Portuguese "public opinion" would
not probably have been much ahead of other varieties of the same organ.
In deciding the abstract question to which the Prince had given his
life, the mob of Lisbon or of Lagos would hardly have been quicker than
modern mobs to rise to a notion above that of personal gain. If the
cause of discovery and an empire to come had been left to them, the
labour leaders might have said then in Spain, as some of them have said
to-day in England, "What is all this talk about the Empire? What is it
to us working men? We don't want the Empire, we want more w