Excerpt from The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, Surnamed the Navigator, and Its Results: Comprising the Discovery, Within One Century, of Half the World With the History of the Naming of America

It may perhaps be fairly regarded as a matter of surprise that no Englishman has hitherto attempted to prepare a monograph of the life of Prince Henry the Navigator. If a phenomenon without example in the world's history, resulting from the thought and perseverance of one man, might be supposed of interest enough to tempt the pen of the biographer, assuredly that inducement was not wanting. When we see the small population of a narrow strip of the Spanish Peninsula, limited both in means and men, become, in an incredibly short space of time, a mighty maritime nation, not only conquering the islands and Western Coasts of Africa and rounding its Southern Cape, but creating empires and founding capital cities at a distance of two thousand leagues from their own homesteads, we are tempted to suppose that such results must have been brought about by some freak of fortune, some happy stroke of luck. Not so: they were the effects of the patience, wisdom, intellectual labour, and example of one man, backed by the pluck of a race of sailors who, when we consider the means at their disposal, have been unsurpassed as adventurers in any country or in any age.

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