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was first passed, and ten years afterwards the Portuguese founded a fort and established a trading station on the coast of Guinea for the purpose of maintaining a permanent commercial intercourse with the natives.

From this commercial alliance the Portuguese derived large profits, while the crown received a considerable revenue from the ivory and gold the natives offered in abundance in exchange for trinkets and baubles of European manufacture. The greatest precautions were necessary to preserve in their own hands the valuable trade they had discovered, as other nations had indistinctly heard of the enormous profits the Portuguese were deriving from their commercial intercourse with some distant and hitherto unknown lands. They were, however, successful in keeping this secret for a good many years.

The reign of Dom John II. was likewise conspicuous for the still wider extension of this spirit of maritime enterprise. Second only to Prince Henry, this monarch displayed the greatest anxiety to foster discoveries by sea. He had been taught to believe that, by coasting along the African continent, a passage to the East Indies might be discovered; and he not only equipped two small squadrons expressly for this purpose, but despatched two of his subjects into India and Abyssinia to find out the route to and between these vast regions, and to ascertain what advantages the trade of his country might derive from the knowledge thus acquired. These researches ulti-*