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darkness: but the merit of Gama is somewhat abated by | the previous inspiration of hope and knowledge.

From the designs of Prince Henry to their final accomplishment by Vasco de Gama, the Portuguese discoveries of Africa and India have been the theme of many historians: but the copious stream which uniformly flows in the same channel is derived from a muddy and penurious source. The inquisitive Ramusio (1550) deplores the negligence of the kings of Portugal, who should have required and preserved the fresh memorials of each successful expedition. That no more than four persons had survived to commemerate the acts of their countrymen is: the complaint of Castaneda (1553), a laborious historian, who might converse with Gama himself, and who had exhausted the original archives. of Lisbon and Goa. The narrative of the two African voyages of Cada-. -mosta the Venetian is the only composition of the fifteenth century: which has reached’ my knowledge *: that curious navigator describes. the scenes in which he was personally engaged; his fancy was ‘not infizmed by patriotism ; nor could his judgment be affected by any subsequent events. From this contemporary monument, I shall extract - the purest idea of the primitive designs and discoveries of Prince Henryand his associates.’

Fram his castle on the shores of the Atlantic, near Cape Lagos in Portugal, Prince Henry encouraged and improved the art of navigation, without trusting his person tothe ocean. The trade between Italy and: Flanders passed before him, and Cadamosta himself is an example how liberally he engaged the service of the most skilful seamen, and the. bravest spirit of the age. His original motives were religion and. “chivalry: the master of the order of Christ was bound by the injunction of a dying father to puraue the Moors on the sea as well as on the land: but his zeal was soon directed by curiosity, and his curiosity was rewarded with the first fruits of commerce. His Caravels, which annually:

# See the Italian original ef the narrative of M. Aluise da Cadamosta in. the Collection: of Ramusio, tom. i. folio 104—121 ; a Latin version in the Novus Orbis of Grynæus, and a French abstract in the Histoire Générale des Voyages, tom. 11. p. 285-321. Cadamosta: left Venice August the sth, A. D. 1454, at the age of twenty-two; he performed his two voyages in the years 1455. and. 1456, and he finally quitted Portugal. the ist of February, 1463.

infested.

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infeated the coast.of Azafi and Messa, were urged by his powerful voice beyond the tremeridous capes of Non-and Boyador; they slowly moved along a sandy desert of a thousand miles, which drinks the waters: of the Atlantic, and explored the Senegal and the Gambia, that separate the countries.of the whites andthe blaeks. From the fertile and populous banks of these rivers they still advanced to the south ; but the Sierra Leone appears to be the most remote discovery of Prince Henry, who in the labour of fosty years did not attain the term of the navigation of Hanno. But the Canaries, er Fortunate Islands, had emerged from the darkness of the middle age; and the vessels of Portugal were driven by the winds, or guided by the compass, to the more distant istes of | Madeira and Cape Verd. The commerctal profits of Prince Henry and his associates, which sometimes exceeded one thousand: per esnt. were derived from various sources. The settlement of Madeira had been vapid and useful; and the four colonies of the island consisted of eight hundred Christians, of whom one hundred were qualified. to serve on horsebaek. A large quantity of cedar and rose-wood was annualty exported, the sugar-canes which Prince Henry introduced surpassed in their produce those of Cyprus and Sicily, and the vines of Candis derived a new flavour from the soil and climate. A plentifal fishery atoned in some degree for the barrenness of the desert. Arguin was enriched by the inland trade; and: the land of the Negroes afforded a fair promise of gold-dust, ivory and slaves.

It. is curious to observe how strongly in this first interview the superiority of the whites. was felt and acknowledged by the blacks. Fhe Portuguese. sails as they swelled to the. wind were mistaken by: the Azenaghis for enormous birds: when the ships lay at anchor near the shore they assumed-the form of sea-monsters, and.in their rapid motions they were likened: to the spirits of the air and deep. The Negroes trembled at the: sound: and effect of the muskets and cannon, one of which, as it was said, could destroy an hundred enemies at a single blast. They admired the dress and music, tlie arts; the luxury, the riches of the Europeans, who enjoyed their paradise in this world, and who surpassed in power and knowledge the magicians and perhaps the deities.of Africa. But an opinion prevailed on the banks of the Gambia, that the black slaves, who were embarked in the foreign vessela, sup-

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plied with a grateful food :the polite cannibals of Europe. If we follow the fate of these unhappy men, this false suspicion ig ‘rather favourable than mjurious to Christian humanity.

Of the maritime nations of Europe the French have had the smallest share in the fame.and benefits of the great naval discoveries. Yet their authors pretend, that they were the first, after the fall of the Roman empire, who sailed along the coast of Africa beyond the southern limit of the world. Before the year 1864, the ships of Normandy had penetrated as far as Cape Verd, the river Senegal, and the mountains of Sierra Leone ; and in the month of September, 1365, an act of association was signed between the merchant adventurers of Dieppe and Rouen. The joint efforts of this trading company produced a rapid increase of wealth and knowledge: the domestic names of Paris and Dieppe weré applied to the new factories on the coast of Guinea ; and a French title is maintained to the original foundation (1383—1386) of the well known fort and settlement of St. George de la Mina. But the civil confusions of France were soon renewed by the insanity of Charles VI. (1392); the spirit of commerce and navigation evaporated ; the sons of opulent traders aspired to the rank of gentlemen and soldiers; their African eolonies were deserted or destroyed, and this French discovery ” yanished like a dream from the coast of Guinea and the memory of men *.

It is indeed a dream.—I will not deny that the Normans of the fourteenth century frequented the Atlantic Ocean, that their ships, returning with a cargo of Spanish wines, might be driven far away to the southward, and that the eonquest of the Canary islands was first under- . taken by a private gentleman of Normandy. But this offspring of national vanity, this fable of a Senegal and Guinea Company may bé annihilated. by some short and simple reflections. 1. Less than thirty years (1334—1564) cannot decently be assigned for the first and most laborious steps of the Atlantic navigation, and these years must fall on . the calamitous reigns of Philip of Valois and his son John. The military strength of the kingdom was lost in the fields of Crecy and Poitiers :

# See two works of Père Labat, L’Afriqug Occidentale, tom. i. p. 6—16, and Voyage en Guinée, tom. i. p. 133. 238, &c. and likewise l’Histoire Générale des Voyages, tom. ii. p. 424. tom. iv. p. 2, &c.

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two hundred and thirty ships and thirty thousand seamen were destroyed in a naval engagement: Normandy was invaded by the English, Caen was pillaged; the miseries of war and faction aggravgted each other; the wealth of France was drained for a king’s ransom; and the great plague swept away the third part of the human race. And was this a time ?——2. The writers of the age are ignorant (and they could not have been ignorant) of these African discoveries. Such exploits would have been enrolled by the historians of Charles V. among the peaceful triumphs of his reign. Would not the archives of France and England afford some acts of regulation or favour to the Norman Company? Must not the new commodities of Guinea, gold-dust, ivory, and Negroes, have been soon noticed in the market of Bruges? Could the curious and vagrant Froissard never meet a talkative mariner who had sailed beyond the tropic? The fourteenth century might be inattentive to - the benefits of trade; the genuine or specious miracles of an Atlantic voyage would have been transcribed and read as eagerly as a romance "of chivalry or the legend of a saint. 3. The Portuguese may assert the faith of their own historians, but the Venetian Cadamosta was a contemporary and a stranger: and Cadamosta affirms that their discoveries were long checked by the supposed impossibility of passing Cape ‘Boyador. Could such an impossibility have been supposed, if the French vessels had been seen within the memory of man steering an annual course to their Guinea settlements above twenty degrees southward of the impassable cape? 4. This pile of improbabilities is raised on an airy basis. I might peruse with attention the original act of association in the archives of Dieppe: but, alas! these archives have been consumed by fire (1694). I wsll smile at the reference to some anonymous manuscripts in the library of a town lawyer, whose name is discreetly suppressed. Nor shall I deign to examine the collateral proofs, a vague appellation, a broken date, and the old attachment of the Negroes for the French nation. 5. The motive of this idle fiction may be easily detected. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Senegal and Guinea trade was actually exercised by the African Company of Dieppe and Rouen. ‘These merchant adventurers were prompted by interest as well as pride to magnify the antiquity of their house, to elaim the inheritance of the golden coast, and to urge, agaist the Portuguese, a prior right of discovery and possession.