expensive Portuguese garrison that had to be continually re-supplied from across the sea. There had been no follow-up Portuguese campaigns in North Africa, with the result that the Ceuta garrison had little to do, beyond waiting and eating through the king's treasury. There were growing calls in the Portuguese court to simply withdraw the troops and abandon Ceuta. Henry's proposal In 1416, King John I of Portugal placed his son, the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, Duke of Viseu, in charge of supplying and provisioning Ceuta. As a result, Henry was disinclined to abandoning the city, and instead urged an expansion of Portuguese holdings in Morocco. In 1432, Henry the Navigator proposed to his father King John I of Portugal an ambitious project to allow him to lead a war of conquest of Marinid Morocco, or at least carve out a wider regional enclave in the north. The king called on the royal council, including the rest of his sons – the Ínclita Geração – for consultation. Henry's brothers, the princes Edward of Portugal, Peter of Coimbra, John of Reguengos, their half-brother Afonso of Barcelos and Afonso's grown sons, Ferdinand of Arraiolos and Afonso of Ourém, almost unanimously pronounced themselves against the project. They cited the lack of Portuguese manpower and the huge expense of conquering and holding such a large area, and questioned the purpose and legal basis of the conquest. Moreover, they subtly expressed doubts about Henry's ability to lead such an expedition, and suggested that if Henry was intent on military glory or crusade, then he perhaps ought to enter the service of the Crown of Castile and campaign on the Granadan frontier instead. (Indeed, such a proposal was submitted to Castile a month later (July 1432) by a Portuguese emissary, but was rejected out of hand by the Castilian strongman Álvaro de Luna.) In defense of the project, Henry pointed out the Marinid kingdom of Morocco was deeply fractured among rebellious lords and the leadership in Fez was embroiled in political crisis. The young Marinid sultan Abd al-Haqq II was coming of age, but his unpopular Wattasid vizier (and regent since 1420), Abu Zakariya Yahya al-Wattasi, refused to yield power. Henry calculated the divided and distracted Marinids would not be able to organize much of a defense, that the time was opportune to take another piece of Morocco. Henry also believed the manpower concerns were exaggerated,