258 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



In order to divert the king from carrying out his 

 spirited enterprise, many influential persons, including 

 the envoys of foreign sovereigns, based their oppo- 

 sition upon motives of state policy. They urged, as 

 it has since been urged in regard to the Suez Canal, 

 that the enterprise was an impossible one, and that as, 

 in the event of its succeeding, the balance of trade 

 would be altered, the nations which had the exclusive 

 possession of the trade with India would combine in 

 a war of extermination against Portiigal. 



Prince Henry was no longer alive to answer these 

 contradictory objections and perfidious suggestions, 

 and since then the spirit of enterprise and maritime 

 discovery had declined in Portugal. 



But some years later King Emanuel determined to 

 follow up the noble project of his predecessors. He 

 selected as his lieutenant Yasco de Gama, a man of 

 great distinction both as regarded his courage and 

 general disposition, and he intrusted him with the 

 journal and maps of Pedro Covillan, as well as the 

 letters of the African and Indian princes of whom he 

 had heard. 



Upon July 14, 1497, Gama started from Lisbon 

 with a small fleet, and upon the 18th of November he 

 discovered the Cape of Storms. But the ships were so 

 tempest-tossed that the sailors refused to go any far- 

 ther. The impressions made by the voyage of Diaz 

 were stronger than the obedience and resignation 

 which they had solemnly sworn in the Chapel of the 



