-^ Portuguese Explorations 



Portugal, and was full of crusading ardour. He dashed to the 

 front in Morocco, and lost the battle of Kasr-al-Kablr against 

 the Moorish forces under the last prince of the Marinide 

 dynasty, Abd-al-Malek, and the first of the Sharifian, Abu'l 

 Abbas Ahmad al-Mansur. Realising that he had not only 

 lost the battle, but the Portuguese empire in Morocco, he 

 rushed on death. He died unmarried. The house of Avis 

 was left with but one royal representative, the Cardinal 

 Henry, who assumed the royal power, and died two years 

 afterwards. Philip II. of Spain, taking advantage of the dis- 

 puted claim to the Portuguese crown, forced on the notables 

 of the country his own rights through his wife, and by dint 

 of cajolery, bribes, and threats he was chosen as King of 

 Portugal. 



This union of the crowns of Spain and Portugal gave rise 

 to many results, and even affected the future of Liberia ! The 

 merchants of England, France, and the Low Countries had 

 long been envious of the Portuguese monopoly on the West 

 Coast of Africa, in Brazil and the Guianas, the Malay Peninsula 

 and Archipelago, China and Japan. The Turks of Egypt and 

 the Arabs of Western and Southern Arabia were furious at the 

 way in which the Portuguese had ousted them from the strong 

 places of Eastern Africa and Zanzibar, of the Red Sea, Aden, 

 and the Straits of Ormuz in the Persian Gulf But England, 

 France, and the Low Countries were ostensibly at peace with 

 Portugal, and Portuguese valour and marvellous resourcefulness 

 in the Eastern seas imposed submission on the Turks and 

 Arabs. The act of Philip 11. in uniting the kingdoms of Spain 

 and Portugal put an end to this check on the greed and 

 ambition of other Powers. In the first place, the same fatal 

 paralysis which the rule of Madrid had exercised over Spanish 

 operations in America was to numb much of the enterprise carried 



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