Prince Henry and Columbus were the two great originators of the geographical discoveries of the age. Either of the two was profoundly religious, and in the mind of each the ardour for propagating the true faith existed equally with the ardour for discovery. It is a strange and sad reflection that each one of those two great men--in some respects the greatest men of their age--was the originator of a new form of slavery. To Prince Henry is to be traced the origin of the enslavement of African negroes; to Columbus that of the system of _encomiendas_ or partitions of Indians amongst Spanish settlers. Either system was productive of untold misery to large classes of the human race, and in one case the evil is not even yet extinct, as witness _Brazil_ and _Cuba_. And yet the motives of Prince Henry in originating and sanctioning African slavery, were, without doubt, not only wholly unselfish, but were dictated solely by a desire for the spiritual enlightenment and civilization of the heathen. The motives of Columbus were perhaps more open to question. It is true that he himself, when on his last visit to _Hispaniola_ he had seen the miserable results of the system which he had originated, declared to his sovereign that in sending home Indian captives to be sold as slaves he had been actuated solely by a desire for their spiritual welfare, and by the hope that they would return to spread civilization amongst their countrymen; but it is to be remembered that the motives of the great Genoese were not wholly pure, and that he himself repeatedly requested permission to send home Indians to be sold as slaves in order to diminish the expense to the crown in connection with the colony. He was rightfully rebuked by the pure-minded Isabella, who indignantly ordered such Indians to be returned to their country, and instructed the admiral that their conversion was to be brought about by the ordinary means, and not by their being enslaved.