oned the right of Christians to make slaves of Heathen
Blacks; Henry certainly did not, for he used slavery as an education, he
made captives of "Gentiles" for the highest ends, as he believed, to
save their souls, and to help him in the way of doing great things for
his country and for Christendom. He knew more of the results than of the
incidental cruelty, more of the hundreds taken than of the hundreds more
killed and maimed and made homeless in the taking. For centuries past
Moors had brought back slaves from the south across the Sahara to sell
on the coast of Tunis and Morocco; no Christian doubted the right
and--more than the right--the merit of the Prince in bringing black
slaves by sea from Guinea to Lisbon, where they might be fairly saved
from the grasp of "Foul Mahumet."

So if it is said that Henry started the African slave-trade of European
nations, that must not be understood as the full-blooded atrocity of the
West Indian planters, for the use he made of his prisoners was utterly
different, though his action was the cause of incessant abuse of the
best end by the worst of means.

At the time the gold question was much more important than the
slave-trade, and most Portuguese, most Europeans--nobles, merchants,
burghers, farmers, labourers--were much more excited by the news and the
sight of the first native gold dust than by anything else whatever. It
was the first few handfuls of this dust, brought home by Gonsalvez in
1442, that had such a magical effect on public opinion, that spread the
exploring interest from a small circle out into every class, and that
brought forward volunteers on every side. For a Guinea voyage was now
the favourite plan of every adventurer.

But however they may be explained, however natural and even necessary
they may seem to be, as things stood in Portugal and in Latin
Christendom, the slave-trade and the gold hunger hindered the Prince's
work quite as much as they helped it. If further discovery depended upon
trade profits, native interpreters, and the attractions of material
interest, there was at least a danger that the discoverers who were not
disposed to risk anything, and only went out to line their own pockets,
would hang about the well known coasts till they had loaded all the
plunder they could hold, and would then simply reappear at Sagres with
so many more souls for the good Prince to save, but without a word or a
thought of "finding of new lands." And this, after