Henry the Navigator

“ King Affonso V., Henry's nephew, though rather more of a hard fighter and tournament king than a man who could fully take up his uncle's plans, had yet caught enough of his inspiration to push on steadily, though slowly, the advance round Africa. He had already done his best to get the great map of Fra Mauro finished: this, which embodied all the achievements of the Navigator and gave the most complete and perfect view of the world that had ever yet appeared, had come out in 1459, just before Henry's death, the last tribute of science to the Prince's work. ”

“ But what were the results of Henry’s great organisation and activities? Indirectly he was the cause of Columbus finding the New World when looking for India in 1492; of Da Gama reaching India in 1498; of Magellan encircling the globe in 1520–2: less directly still to him may be traced the round-the-world voyages of Drake and Anson. To Prince Henry the Navigator may be ascribed at least half the honour in conquering the islands of the Atlantic and the western coast of Africa, the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, the founding of transoceanic empires and magnificent cities. ”

“ Henry of Huntingdon, a noted English chronicler of the 12th century, who became archdeacon of Huntingdon, and wrote a Latin history of England down to the death of Stephen in 1154.
Henry the Navigator, son of John I., king of Portugal, born at Oporto; an able, enterprising man, animated with a zeal for maritime discovery, and who at his own expense sent out voyagers who discovered the Madeira Islands and explored the coast of Africa as far as Cape Blanco; is said to have been the first to employ the compass for purposes of navigation ”

“ And as for a long time the ships of the Prince did not dare to pass that point, Henry roused himself to accomplish this feat, seeing that his caravels did much excel all other sailing ships afloat, and strictly enjoined his captains not to return before they had passed the said Cape. Who steadily pressing on, and never leaving sight of the shore, did in truth pass near one hundred miles beyond, finding nothing but desert land. ”

“ So, as the beginning of general interest in the Crusade of Discovery which Henry had now preached to his countrymen for thirty years, as the beginning of the career of Henry's chief captain, the head of his merchant allies, as the beginning, in fact, of a new and bright period, this first voyage of Lançarote's, this first Armada sent out to find and to conquer the Moors and Blacks of the unknown or half-known South, is worth more than a passing notice. ”

“ Only the Northmen of Scandinavia, living a life apart, and forced to make their way over the wild North Sea, were untouched by this southern superstition, and ventured across the ocean by the Färoes, Iceland, and Greenland, to the coast of Labrador.
The doctors of the Koran indeed thought that a man mad enough to embark for the unknown, even on a coasting voyage, should be deprived of civil rights. Ibn Said goes further, and says no one has ever done this: "whirlpools always destroy any adventurer." As late as the generation immediately before Henry the Navigator, about a.d. ”

“ In general, there is an external carefulness as well as gorgeousness about the workmanship; the coasts, especially in the Mediterranean and along the west coast of Europe, would almost suit a modern Admiralty Chart, while its notice, the first notice, of Prince Henry's African and Atlantic discoveries is the special point of the whole work. ”

“ More than forty ships sail out, more than nine hundred captives are brought home, and the new lands found are all discovered by three or four explorers. National interest seems awakened to very little purpose. But what explains the slow [Pg 210] progress of discovery, explains also the fact that any progress, however slow, was made at all, apart from the personal action of Henry himself. ”

“ His earlier essays in exploration had been attempts, like the unconnected and occasional efforts of Spanish and Italian daredevils. It is from this year that continuous ocean sailing begins; from the time of his stay in Ceuta, Henry works steadily and with foresight towards a nearer goal well foreseen, a first stage in his wider scheme which had been traversed by men he had known and talked with. They had come into Ceuta from Guinea over the sea of the desert; he would send his sailors to their starting-point by the longer way, over the desert of the sea. ”

“ Should we prove victorious, every man might have been hung as a pirate. As to Parker, he dared not leave his fleet, as he ventured to call it.
Our master, although a good navigator, did not feel himself justified in taking charge of the ship, within the boundaries of a Branch pilot, and we were therefore on the look-out for a pilot vessel, when a lugger was discovered on the lee-bow, and we were on the point of bearing down to her, when we made out first a ship or two, then several sail, and lastly, a whole fleet, which we guessed must be the North Sea Fleet standing for the Nore. ”

“ On the other hand, the strength of the movement lay of course in the few exceptions. As long as all or nearly all the instruments employed were simply buccaneers, with a single eye to trade profits, discovery could not advance very fast or very far. Till the real meaning of the Prince's life had impressed his nearest followers with something of his own spirit, there could be no exploration, except by accident, though without this background of material gain no national interest could have been enlisted in exploration at all. ”

“ We must trace more definitely the preparation which has been generally described for the work of Prince Henry first in the pilgrim-warriors, and the travellers of the New Age, merchants or preachers or sight-seers, who follow out the East [Pg 81] ern land-routes; next in the seamen who begin to break the spell of the Western Ocean and to open up the high seas, the true high-roads of the world; lastly in the students who most of all, in their maps and globes and instruments and theories, are the trainers and masters and spiritual ancestors of the Hero of Discovery. ”

“ If God made the firm earth, the Devil made the unknown and treacherous ocean—this was the real lesson of most of the mediæval maps, and it was this ingrained superstition that Henry found his worst enemy, appearing as it did sometimes even in his most trusted and daring captains. ”

“ Lastly, the intermittent and uncertain ventures of the fourteenth-century seamen, Italian, Spanish, French, or English, to coast round Africa or to find the Indies by the Southern route—to reach a definite end without any clear plan of means to that end—and the revival in theoretical geography, which was trying at the same time to fill up the gaps of knowledge by tradition or by probability—seemed to offer a clear contrast and a clear foreshadowing also of Prince Henry's method. ”

“ Ignorant and brutal as they are, they know no other Christian people but the Portuguese, who have [Pg 270] enslaved and plundered them now fourteen years. This much is certain, that when they first saw the ships of Don Henry sailing past, they thought them to be birds coming from far and cleaving the air with white wings. When the crews furled sail and drew in to the shore, the natives changed their minds and thought they were fishes; some, who first saw the ships sailing by night, believed them to be phantoms gliding past. ”

“ In any case, and in the eyes of ordinary men, the riches of the East were the plain and primary reason of the explorations. Science had its own aims, but to gain an income for its work it must promise some definite gain. And the chief hope of Henry's captains was that the wealth now flowing by the overland routes to the Levant would in time, as the prize of Portuguese daring, go by the water way, without delay or fear of plunder or Arab middlemen, to Lisbon and Oporto. ”

“ His last great act was to establish in 1546 'The Office of the Admiralty and Marine Affairs.' During the thirty-seven years between his accession and the creation of this Navy Board the pregnant change was made.
'King Henry loved a man.' He had an unerring eye for choosing the right leaders. He delighted in everything to do with ships and shipping. He mixed freely with naval men and merchant skippers, visited the dockyards, promoted several improved types of vessels, and always befriended Fletcher of Rye, the shipwright who discovered the art of tacking and thereby revolutionized navigation. ”

“ But the fleet, though employing fewer men, was relatively a much more important force than the army; and with the fleet went Henry's own headquarters. His lifelong interest in his navy now bore the first-fruits of really scientific sea power on an oceanic scale. There was no great naval battle to fix general attention on one dramatic moment. Henry's strategy and tactics, however, were new and full of promise. He repeated his strategy of the previous war by sending out a strong squadron to attack the base at which the enemy's ships were then assembling ”

“ It was the first time he had ever been aboard such a vessel. She was a ship of good length, built for capacity rather than speed, and her lines were as ample as those of a Dutch hausfrau. They made the boat appear clumsy. She was cut low amidship, her forecastle and afterdecks being built at a higher level. The long stretch of clear deck, unbroken by superstructure, made the craft seem longer than she really was. Fore and aft rose the enormous cargo-derricks, which had been so conspicuous from a distance. And Henry was interested to see how the derrick-booms were lashed in their places. ”

“ Often enough had Henry seen the rigging of modern sailing ships. He knew well enough what these rope ladders that lead to the crosstrees look like in modern boats. But here, instead of the customary three stays on a side, were stays after stays, with their crosspieces, so that many men at a time could swarm up and down the rigging, and out on those enormous spars to furl the sails, for the ship was a square rigger. And at the crosstrees were great platforms where a dozen men could stand. Henry saw right away the reason for these platforms. Sailors could stand here after furling the sails. ”

“ When Henry thought of the grimy coal passers he had just seen, conveying the fuel for the furnaces, and the men keeping the fires at red heat, and the engineers watching the great machines that drove the ship, and the sailors standing watch forward in the dark, and the helmsman at the wheel, with his eye directed steadfastly at the compass, he saw how necessary every part of the ship was to the other parts, and how especially necessary it was that the man in charge be ever vigilant, and that instant and unquestioning obedience be rendered to him. ”

“ Amidst the various means that were employed to call forth the energy and daring spirit of the nation, at that eventful period, when the connection of our American colonies with the mother country was at length destroyed by the assistance and machinations of France, the noble conduct of George III. who entered Prince William Henry as a Midshipman in the royal navy, excited universal admiration, and produced the following encomium from the Spanish Admiral Langara: “Well does Great Britain merit the Empire of the Sea, when the humblest stations in her navy are supported by Princes of the Blood.” ”

“ The Iroquois seemed to stop in her tracks. She trembled from stem to stern. She shook and quivered. The great wave went roaring aft, twisting and tearing at the ship. A section of the rail carried away, and went pounding astern. The tumult was terrifying. Henry, in the chart-room, thought the ship was breaking to pieces. With blanched face and set teeth he clung to the side of the room, not knowing what to do. He was reassured when the captain calmly stepped inside the wheelhouse and signaled for the engineer to lessen speed. ”

“ For in 1416, exactly five hundred years before Jellicoe's victory of Jutland, Henry's Parliament passed a resolution in which you still can read these words: "that the Navy is the chief support of the wealth, the business, and the whole prosperity of England." Some years later Hungerford, one of Henry's admirals, wrote a Book of English Policy, "exhorting all England to keep the sea" and explaining what Edward III had meant by stamping a ship on the gold coins called nobles: "Four things our noble showeth unto me: King, ship, and sword, and power of the sea." ”

“ A stranger, who had never seen it, would not think it possible for a ship to live at sea, as it will in a storm, and ride it out, but would expect that the next wave would bury it and it would never come up again; and yet God, who taught man discretion to make ships that should so strangely keep above water, does by his special providence preserve them, that they answer the end to admiration. When the ships are thus tossed the soul of the seaman melts because of trouble ”

“ Fathom after fathom the giant anchor-chain was paid out. Fathom after fathom the Iroquois rode backward toward the seething breakers.
Fascinated, Henry watched the attempt to get within reach of the unfortunate steamer. Gradually the Iroquois drew near to the smother of white water. The sea was shoaling fast and the tide was running out, but the captain kept on in the hope that he could get near enough to shoot a line aboard the Capitol City. His shells, and the shot-line, loosely wound in the faking-box so that it would run out freely, were ready for instant use. ”

“ He’s here before we know he’s anywhere near New York. There’s no use searching him after he’s in the harbor, for he probably passes his stuff out to fishermen or boatmen before he reaches the Narrows. Likely he drops it overboard, with buoys to mark it, so his confederates can go out in small boats and pick it up. We figure he must do it this way, for the custom guards have watched his ship at her pier as a cat watches a mouse-hole, and they can never get a thing that is suspicious.”
“Why don’t you get a compass bearing on the Orient while she is at sea?” asked Henry. ”