He says that the prince was a man of great counsel and authority, wise and of good memory, but in some things slow, whether it was through the prevalence of the phlegmatic temperament in his constitution, or from intentional deliberation, being moved to some end which men did not perceive.
HIS CHARACTER.
It was this temperament, probably, that made the prince incapable of "ill-will against any person, however great the injury he had received from him," so that this placidity of disposition seemed an actual fault in him.

He was accordingly thought "deficient in distributive justice." There are instances in his conduct which bear out this, and one especially, in which he is stated to have overlooked the desertion of his banner, on an occasion of great peril to himself, and afterwards to have unjustly favoured the persons who had thus been found wanting in courage.

This, no doubt, was an error on his part, but at least it was an heroic one, such as belonged to the first Caesar; and in the estimation of the prince's followers, it probably added to their liking for the man what little it may have taken away from their confidence in the precision of his justice as a commander.
PRINCE HENRY'S CHARACTER.
We learn, from the same authority, that his house was the resort of all the good men of the kingdom, and of foreigners, and that he was a man of intense labour and study.

"Often the sun found him in the same place where it had left him the day before, he having watched throughout the whole arc of the night without any rest." Altogether, whether we consider this prince's motives, his objects, his deeds, or his mode of life, we must acknowledge him to be one of the most notable men, not merely of his own country and period, but of modern times and of all nations, and one upon whose shoulders might worthily rest the arduous beginnings of continuous maritime discovery.

Would that such men remained to govern the lands they have the courageous foresight to discover! Then, indeed, they might take to themselves the motto talant de bien jaire, which this prince, their great leader, caused to be inscribed by his captains in many a land, that as yet, at least, has not found much good from its introduction, under his auspices, to the civilization of an older world.
PRESTER JOHN Hurrying over this preliminary sketch, we may briefly note that about six years after Prince Henry's death, the Gold Coast was explored by Fernando Gomez, and the Portuguese fort was built there which Columbus afterwards visited; that Fernando Po discovered an island which was then called Formosa, but which is now known by the name of its discoverer; and that Diego Cam, accompanied, it is said, by Martin Behaim (Martin of Bohemia), the most celebrated geographer of those times--to whom, by the way, some of the credit exclusively due to Columbus has been rather unfairly given--discovered the kingdom of Congo.