CHAPTER II.
Stay of of Columbus in Lisbon. — His Marriage with the daughter of a Navigator. — His Voyages to the Canaries, the Azores, and the African Coasts. — His Propositions of Discovery to Genoa, to Venice, to Portugal. — Oflers of the King. — His Noble Refusal. — His Return to Italy. — His Departure for Spain.
SECTION I.
ALREADY, for nearly half a century, Portugal, too narrow in her territorial limits, sought an extension of them by sea. She had augmented her domain by several islands far from known shores, in the bosom of the ocean. This success did not represent the sum of the efforts of many reigns. It was solely owing to the patronage of a prince, who, though placed near the throne, did not aspire to it; his only ambition being to serve God and his country.
A French philosopher has justly remarked, that all the great navigators have been Christians. The prince who gave the first impulse to the navigation of the ocean, was a true Catholic.
Don Henry, son of King John, and Grand Master of the Order of Christ, wished to procure for his knights glory in this world, and eternal felicity in the next. While yet very young, he distinguished himself against the Moors, in Africa, on the walls of Ceuta; at a later period, he judged it would be better to convert than to slay them. Notwithstanding his quality of Grand Master of an order instituted to fight against the Mahometans, the enemies of the law of Jesus Christ, he considered he was more obliged to subjugate them to the sweetness of that yoke, than to extend the
