Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 16.djvu/316

 seeme to agree, that they should be that countrey, which is called Noua Spagna.

In the yeere 1449. the king Don Alfonso gaue licence vnto his vncle Don Henry to inhabit the Islands of the Açores, which were long before discouered.

And in the yeere 1458. this king went into Africa, and there he tooke the towne called Alcaçer.

And in the yeere 1461. he commanded Signior Mendez a gentleman of his house to build the castle of Arguin, whereof he gaue vnto him the gouernment as to his lieutenant.

In the yeere 1462. there came into the realme of Portugall three Genowais of good parentage, the chiefe of whom was called Antonie de Noli, and of the other two, the one was his brother, the other was his nephew, and each of these had his seuerall ship, crauing libertie of Don Henry to discouer the Islands of Cape Verde, which was granted them. Others say, that the places which they discouered, were those, which Antiquitie called the Gorgades, Hesperides, and Dorcades: but they named them Mayo, Sainct Iago, and Sainct Philip, because they discouered them on those Saints daies: but they are also called by some the Islands of Antonio.

In the yeere following 1463. this good nobleman Don Henry died, leauing from Cape De Non discouered vnto the mountaine called Sierra Leona, standing on this side the line in 8. degrees of latitude, where no man had beene before that time.

In the yeere 1469. the king of Portugall did let out for yeerely rent the trade of Guiney vnto one called Fernan Gomez, which countrey afterwards was called The Mine. He let it out for fiue yeeres, for two hundred thousand Reyes by the yeere (which is of our English money 138.l. 17.s. 9.d. ob.) and added vnto his lease this condition, that euery yeere he should discouer a hundred leagues.

In the yeere following, which was 1470. this king went into