CHAPTER XII - How Antam Gonçalvez brought back the first Captives

Summary

I think I can now take some sort of pleasure in the narrating of this history, because I find something wherewith to satisfy the desire of our Prince; the which desire was so much the greater as the matters for which he had toiled so long were now more within his view. And so in this chapter I wish to present some novelty in his toilsome seed-time of preparation.

Now it was so that in this year 1441, when the affairs of this realm were somewhat more settled though not fully quieted, that the Infant armed a little ship, of the which he made captain one Antam Gonçalvez, his chamberlain, and a very young man; and the end of that voyage was none other, according to my Lord's commandment, but to ship a cargo of the skins and oil of those seawolves of which we have spoken in previous chapters. But it cannot be doubted that the Infant gave him the same charge that he gave to others, but as the age of this captain was weaker, and his authority but slight, so the Prince's orders were less stringent, and in consequence his hopes of result less confident.