136 : The Atlantic 



followers to Africa and captured the city of Ceuta in Algiers. This 

 was a modest victory but in those days it was, after all, something 

 to have a victory and not a defeat. 



When Henry returned to Europe he found that he had become a 

 popular figure on an international scale. Kings were seeking his advice 

 and he could have had the command of an army in England or in 

 Germany. 



Henry surprised everybody by rejecting these offers. He had come 

 back from Africa with something more than victory or popularity. 

 He had come back with a great amount of information respecting the 

 Islamic peoples of Africa and also with information about Africa 

 itself. He had learned of their vast political and religious organiza- 

 tion, their considerable command of science, their ships and their 

 trade routes. Henry came back with a plan for the development of 

 Portugal. He was certain that prosperity and power for Portugal lay 

 in developing its ships and in a program of trading and conquest. 



Henry began developing a systematic study of navigation in the 

 broadest sense; he collected information on ship construction and 

 ship management; on geography; on navigation in the narrower 

 sense. He was always ready to collect new information and he talked 

 with everyone who came into the harbors — even the Moors. He not 

 only collected information — he also collected men. Every time he 

 found a good man, he hired him. After a time, that is, in 1420, he 

 built an observatory, workshop and school for navigators at Sagres 

 near Cape St. Vincent. 



In the port of Palos, nearby, he began building ships and sending 

 them on voyages. In 1418 one of his ships discovered the island of 

 Madeira and soon after it was colonized. This was a great satisfaction 

 to Henry and it looked like a proof of his policies. In this single 

 stroke he accomplished at least two things. He showed that there was 

 justification and reward for vessels that would proceed boldly to sea. 

 The other peak of his triumph was that it served to offset what, from 

 the Portuguese point of view, had been a rebuff or an injustice. As 

 early as 1340 Portuguese vessels had rediscovered the Canary Islands, 

 but subsequendy (1344) the Pope had awarded the islands to the 

 crown of Castile. So that at the very dawn of the age of Iberian navi- 

 gation and discovery there had been a basis of competition between 

 the Spanish and the Portuguese and the pattern was set for a long 

 series of rivalries and recriminations. 



Then, with Madeira behind him as an indication of accomplish- 

 ment, Henry began sending his vessels creeping down the coast of 



