Excerpt from Universal History, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 24: From the Earliest Records of Time, to the General Peace of 1802 At length, however, the period arrived when Providence decreed that men were to pass the li mits within which they had so long been confin ed, and open to themselves a more ample field wherein to display their talents, theit enterprise, and courage. The first efforts towards this were not made by any of the more powerful states of Europe, or by those who had applied to navigation with the greatest assiduity and success. The glo 17 of leading the way in this new career was re served for Portugal, one of the smallest and least powerful of the European kingdoms. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.