Chapter IX

THE PORTUGUESE IN INDIA AND THE EASTERN SEAS.

There is no subject that calls more loudly for an historian than the history of the Portuguese in India during the sixteenth century. There are Portuguese authorities in plenty, for, with a vivid perception of the picturesque, many of the greatest writers of the golden age of Portuguese literature devoted themselves to this fascinating subject. João de Barros, the Portuguese Livy, and a contemporary of the great Indian viceroys, wrote a history of the first half century of Portuguese conquest in India in several volumes, full of interest and charm; Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, Diogo do Couto, and Manoel de Faria e Sousa, all worked in the same field, and the lives of the two greatest of the Portuguese viceroys have full light thrown upon them in the Commentaries of Affonso de Alboquerque,[13] published by his son, and the beautiful Life of Dom João de Castro by Jacinto Freire de Andrade, which is a model of a perfect biography. Nor have the leaders of the revival of the study of history neglected to treat this subject in a scientific manner; many valuable monographs and reprints of precious documents have seen the light within the last fifty years, and much material still remains undigested and unarranged in the archives at the Torre del Tombo. Yet this period, in spite of all the work which has been done upon it, still remains without an historian, fitted by a thorough knowledge, both of Indian history and of the state of civilization in India at the period in question, to draw out the salient and interesting points of the first direct contact between modern Europe and modern Asia, between the East and the West.

Yet it is work which well deserves to be done. Prescott, the great American historian, has shown the interest attaching to the first conflict between Spanish chivalry and the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru; but when will an historian arise to tell worthily the story of the contact between the heroes of Portugal and the more civilized inhabitants of Hindustan? Apart from the fascination of this side of the subject, there remains the fact that for a century the intercourse between Asia and Europe remained in the hands of the Portuguese. The history of the Dutch and the English in the Eastern seas has its own peculiar interest, but they did not find their way in that direction until the nations of the East had been for a whole century in contact with Europeans, and until their attitude had been greatly modified by this contact. Besides, the Dutch and English both went to the East as traders, and not as conquerors, colonizers, and preachers as well. Far different was the intention of the Portuguese. Regardless of the small size and slender population of their fatherland, they dreamed of nothing less than conquering the mighty empires of the East, and imposing Christianity upon them, if need be, by the edge of their swords. Grandiose as this intention was, and full of inconsequence as the idea seems to modern eyes, which have seen with what difficulty England with its teeming population has managed to maintain its hold upon India, even while it has discouraged proselytism and protected native religions, there is something noble in the confidence of the Portuguese warriors in their God, and in their belief that through their means He would spread Christianity throughout the East. For the ambitions of the Portuguese were not confined to India; Portuguese adventurers actually established themselves in power in parts of Arabia, in Burma, and in the district of Chittagong at the head of the Bay of Bengal; Portuguese emissaries found their way to Pekin and Japan, closely followed by the missionaries of the Roman Church; and it was while on his way to convert the millions of China to Christianity that St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, gave up his life. And, lastly, it must be remembered at what odds the Portuguese fought and tried to proselytize in Asia: at many months’ voyage from their homes and base of operations; only able to reach their destinations after sailing in feeble craft round the hardly known, unexplored, and dangerous coast of Africa; deprived of the modern knowledge alike of tides and winds, and of the means to promote existence in tropical climates; they arrived amidst the hostile millions armed only with clumsy arquebuses and their swords; and yet with all these drawbacks they were victorious in many hard-fought fights against more powerful armies than their European successors in the East ever met. Of course there are many blots upon this noble history, tales of corruption and oppression, and of the preference of commercial transactions which made fortunes to the harder _régime_ of honesty and uprightness; but for all that the history is one marked by achievements of valour and adventurous daring, unmatched elsewhere in the history of the world. No wonder that Portugal was exhausted by her efforts; the only wonder is that her sons ever did one tithe of these glorious deeds, or exerted themselves one-tenth as much as they did. This story of the Portuguese in India cannot be treated adequately in a single chapter. Only a _résumé_ of the very briefest description can be given, but if it inspires any reader to go, for instance, to the history of De Barros, he will there find the record of many a deed which will justify these remarks and excite both his interest and his admiration.

It was in the July of 1497 that the fleet of four ships, destined to double the Cape of Good Hope and find its way direct to India, set sail from Lisbon. King Emmanuel, who in carrying out this project and despatching this squadron was only fulfilling the plan formed by John II., selected for the command Vasco da Gama, a gentleman of his household, and son of an experienced mariner, named Estevão da Gama, who had been the nominee of John II. for this post; and two able captains, Paul da Gama, the brother of Vasco, and Nicolas Coelho, volunteered to accompany him. The perils and dangers of this famous voyage have been told in immortal stanzas by Camoens; it is enough here to say that the Portuguese fleet safely rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and began to work its way up the south-eastern coast of Africa. The rulers of Mozambique and Mombassa showed no disposition to assist the Portuguese admiral in his endeavour to find a pilot to guide him across the Indian Ocean; on the contrary, they proved actively hostile, and the false pilot, whom the chief of Mozambique had given him, under the hostile influence, according to Camoens, of Bacchus, who was fearful lest his fame as _Victor Indicus_ should be surpassed, deserted the fleet at Mombassa. However, Vasco da Gama pressed northwards, and at the little town of Melinda, to the north of Zanzibar, he found a friendly monarch, who gave him a skilful pilot. But the perils of the expedition were not yet over; it was the wrong time of the year for crossing the Indian Ocean, and it was only after encountering fearful storms that the Portuguese heroes cast anchor off the city of Calicut on May 20, 1498, after a voyage of nearly eleven months.

The India, which Vasco da Gama reached, was in a very different condition to the India of the Great Moghuls, which came into relations with the first Dutch and English adventurers. It contained no emperor, exercising almost universal sway, but many independent kingdoms. “An Afghán of the Lodí dynasty was then on the throne of Delhi, and another Afghán king was ruling over Bengal. Ahmadábád formed the seat of a Muhammadan dynasty in Gujarát. The five independent Muhammadan kingdoms of Ahmadnagar, Bijápur, Ellichpur, Golconda, and Bídar had partitioned out the Deccan. But the Hindu Rājā of Vijayanagar still ruled as paramount in the south, and was, perhaps, the most powerful monarch to be found at that time in India, not excepting the Lodí dynasty at Delhi.”[14] The ruler of the city at which Vasco da Gama first arrived was a Hindu Rājā, who bore the title of Zamorin, a word derived, according to some writers, from the tradition that the first limits of the settlement were decided by the distance the crowing of a cock could be heard from the summit of the Tali Temple. But though himself a Hindu, the most important subjects of the Zamorin were the fanatical Moplas, the descendants of some Arab and Mohammedan settlers on the Malabar coast. These men had greatly extended the dominions of the Zamorins of Calicut and were the wealthiest inhabitants of the seaboard, for they held the trade of the Malabar coast with Aden, and therefore with the Red Sea, Egypt, and Europe in their hands. It is not to be wondered at therefore, that, though the Hindu Zamorin received the Portuguese navigator with courtesy, the Moplas showed the bitterest opposition to him, and discouraged the idea of a direct trade with Europe, which would bring about their own ruin. This opposition prevented Vasco da Gama from carrying out his intention of leaving some settlers to form a trade establishment at Calicut, and after cruising about along the Malabar coast he commenced his voyage back to Europe.

The voyage home was no less perilous than the voyage out, and it was not until the 29th of August, 1499, that Vasco da Gama cast anchor in the port of Lisbon, bringing back with him but fifty-five out of the 148 companions who had started with him on his adventurous journey. The pious navigator at once went up to the church of Our Lady at Belem, where he had offered up prayers for help before his departure. His devotions completed, Vasco da Gama made his solemn entrance into Lisbon, where he was received with a burst of popular enthusiasm, equal to that which greeted Christopher Columbus on his return from discovering America. King Emmanuel took the title of “Lord of the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India,” which was confirmed to him by a Bull of Pope Alexander VI. in 1502, and he erected the superb church of Belem, as a testimonial of gratitude to heaven. On Vasco da Gama the king conferred well-deserved honours; he was permitted to quarter the royal arms with his own, and was granted the office of Admiral of the Indian seas, with a large revenue to be levied on the Indian trade; he and his brothers were granted the right to use the prefix _Dom_ or Lord, and a little later, when the importance of his voyage became more manifest, he was created Count da Vidigueira.

When the rejoicings were over, King Emmanuel determined to see what advantages could be gained from Dom Vasco da Gama’s discovery, and despatched Pedro Alvares Cabral with a fleet of thirteen ships carrying twelve hundred picked soldiers to establish “factories” on the Malabar coast, for the collection of the most valuable products of the East, which should be conveyed to Portugal in royal ships every year. And here it is necessary to again insist upon the fact, that the Portuguese trade with India was a royal monopoly. The Portuguese establishments in India were not, as was the case with regard to Holland, England, and France in later years, formed by companies of private merchants, who looked upon the Indian trade as a speculation, but were royal factories, managed by royal officers, and served by royal fleets. Private trade was impossible, and not even dreamed of, because it was considered necessary that these factories should be defended by bodies of troops and served by powerful fleets, which cost an amount of money no private firm could furnish. But these royal factories were intended not only to establish and guard trade, but also to spread Christianity, and for that purpose they included from the first not only soldiers, but missionary priests. Pedro Alvares Cabral was driven by stress of weather to the coast of Brazil, of which country he took possession in the name of his sovereign, and then proceeded to follow the course laid down by Vasco da Gama, and reached Calicut in safety. He immediately established a factory at that place, but the Moplas showed the same unfriendly disposition which they had before exhibited towards Vasco da Gama, and at once murdered all the colonists. Cabral then cannonaded Calicut, and proceeded to Cannanore and Cochin, at both of which places he was favourably received, for their Hindu Rājās were unwilling tributaries to the Zamorin of Calicut and his Moplas; and after purchasing great stores of pepper and other Indian commodities, the Portuguese admiral left establishments at these two places to open up trade, and returned home. In 1502, Vasco da Gama arrived for the second time on the Malabar coast with twenty ships, and after again cannonading Calicut, and destroying all the shipping in the port, he strengthened the factories at Cochin and Cannanore and returned. On his departure, Vincente Sodre, one of the officers he had left, deserted the factory and set up as a pirate in the Arabian seas, being the first of those Portuguese adventurers in the Eastern seas whose stories read like romances. In 1503, three separate Portuguese squadrons under the command respectively of Francisco de Alboquerque, Affonso de Alboquerque, and Antonio de Saldanha, reached India, and the first of these captains gave effective assistance to the Rājā of Cochin, who had been attacked by the Zamorin for his welcome of the Portuguese, and was being besieged in the island of Vypin. Francisco de Alboquerque was only just in time, and to guard against such extremities in the future, he built a strong fort, guarded with artillery, at Cochin, and when the three captains departed they left there a garrison of nine hundred men, under the command of Duarte Pacheco. This officer performed the first great feat of arms which illustrated the history of the Portuguese in India; with his small garrison, enfeebled by sickness, he not only drove back the great army which the Zamorin sent against Cochin, but utterly defeated five thousand of his best troops in open battle. This victory established the reputation of the Portuguese in India as soldiers; the factories now found no difficulty in purchasing all the goods they needed at a reasonable price; and what was more important, the fame of Pacheco spread abroad, and he was able to send envoys into the interior of India, who were everywhere favourably received, and generally returned laden with presents. Pacheco’s success inspired the Portuguese monarch with the idea that he could not only absorb the Indian trade, but could conquer India, and Emmanuel decided that a powerful imperial government should be established on the Malabar coast, instead of isolated factories.

The first viceroy he selected was Dom Francisco de Almeida, a Portuguese nobleman of high rank, who had learned the art of war under Gonsalvo da Cordova, better known in Spanish history as the “Great Captain,” and had been a favourite of King John II. The fleet with which he set sail from Belem on March 25, 1505, consisted of sixteen ships and sixteen caravels, and carried fifteen hundred soldiers besides many officials for the new establishment. On his way to India, Dom Francisco de Almeida occupied Quiloa and Mombassa on the south-eastern coast of Africa, and erected forts, which should make them safe resting-places for the Portuguese fleets; and on his arrival at Cannanore on October 22nd he took the title of Viceroy of Cochin, Cannanore, and Quilon. The great Portuguese nobleman looked upon the state of affairs in India from a very different point of view to Cabral, Vasco da Gama, and Pacheco; he did not regard commerce as the sole purpose of the establishments of the Portuguese in the East, and instead of trying to open up trade as Pacheco had done, and only defending himself when attacked, the first viceroy adopted a vigorous policy of active interference with native states, proselytism, and offensive war. He established his seat of government at Cochin, and sent forth expeditions along the Malabar coast, which generally came to blows with the Mohammedan merchants, who saw with dismay that their commerce with Egypt by way of the Red Sea would soon disappear. His chief commander was his son, Dom Lourenço de Almeida, a boy in years, but a hero in the fight. On October 19, 1505, young Lourenço cannonaded and nearly destroyed Conlão, the modern Quilon; on March 18, 1506, he almost annihilated the fleet of the Zamorin of Calicut, consisting of eighty-four ships and one hundred and twenty prahs, with only eleven vessels, and received a check at Dabul, the modern Dábhol; in 1507, he discovered the Maldive Islands, and with Tristão da Cunha sacked the port of Ponáni, and in 1508 the young hero was killed at Chaul in a combat against an Egyptian fleet, which had been sent by the Mamluk Sultan to expel the Portuguese from India under the command of an admiral named Emir Hoseyn. But a more serious danger was impending; the wrath of the Mohammedan sovereigns, whose domains extended to the north-western coasts, and especially of the kings of Bijápur and Gujarāt, was aroused by these aggressions, and they collected powerful fleets and joined Emir Hoseyn. The Viceroy of India, nothing daunted, sailed northward to avenge his son’s death, with only nineteen ships, and after sacking Dábhol he entirely defeated the Mohammedan fleet of more than one hundred ships, on February 2, 1509, off the island of Diu. While the first Portuguese Viceroy was undertaking these operations, his appointed successor, Affonso de Alboquerque, with whom he had quarrelled, and the admiral Tristão da Cunha were exploring the Indian Ocean, and after stopping some time at the island of Socotra, they stormed the wealthy city of Ormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. These explorations had the most important results, and Affonso de Alboquerque was glad, when the appointed time arrived for him at the close of 1509, to take over the government of India as second viceroy.

Affonso de Alboquerque was the greatest of all the Portuguese heroes who served in India, and he owes his fame not only to his feats of arms, numerous and glorious as they were, but to the wisdom and justice of his civil government, and to the fact that he was a great and a far-seeing statesman, as well as a brave warrior. Like Francisco de Almeida, he had been a favourite and an intimate friend of King John II., in whose reign he filled the Court office of Master of the Horse. He commenced his viceroyalty by making a fresh attack on Calicut, the headquarters of the Moplas. He succeeded in burning the palace of the Zamorin and wrecking the city, but the populace then arose in force and drove the Portuguese back to their ships, killing many of their leaders, including the Marshal of Portugal, Dom Fernando Coutinho. Alboquerque then proceeded to take a more important step; he soon perceived that Cochin was too far south to serve as the headquarters of either the trade or the political dominion of the Portuguese, and that it was necessary to occupy some more central spot on the Malabar coast for a capital. The place he selected was Goa, a port in the possession of the Mohammedan king of Bijápur. Thither he sailed with twenty ships and twelve hundred men; and one feat of arms, performed by Antonio de Noronha, at Panjim, at the mouth of the river Goa, where the present capital of the Portuguese possessions in India is situated, laid the city open to him. The citizens, who had been discouraged by the prophecies of a holy mendicant that they were about to be conquered by a foreign people from a distant land, surrendered at once; eight leading men gave Alboquerque the keys of the gates, and the Portuguese viceroy entered the city in triumph on February 17, 1510. But he did not hold it long, for on August 15th, Yūsuf Adil Shah, King of Bijápur, recaptured the city after fierce fighting. Alboquerque did not despair; he received reinforcements from Portugal, and on November 25th, he carried the city by storm, slaying over two thousand Mohammedans, and firmly established himself there.

But Alboquerque was not satisfied with conquering an appropriate capital for Portuguese India, he determined to make his country supreme throughout the Eastern seas. With this idea he undertook two famous expeditions to the east and to the west. The first Portuguese settlers upon the Malabar coast had been told by the native traders that spices and other produce of Asia could be obtained more cheaply further to the east, and these stories had been repeated to King Emmanuel, who determined to send an expedition to these “Spice Islands,” under the command of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. This captain reached the Malabar coast in safety, and was favourably received by the Viceroy, Francisco de Almeida, who found an experienced pilot for him, and gave him sixty well-seasoned soldiers, under the command of Francisco Serrão, and Fernão de Magalhães, who, under the name of Magellan, was to leave his mark upon the map of the world. The pilot led the fleet skilfully, and on September 11, 1509, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira anchored off the city of Malacca, where the Malay chief permitted him to found a factory. On his return to India, he reported to Alboquerque on the wealth of Malacca and of the island of Sumatra, and that spices were both better and cheaper there than in India. The great viceroy at once determined to see these rich countries for himself, and, after some sharp fighting with the Malays, he established the Portuguese power in that quarter upon a firm basis, and returned to Goa. His expedition westwards was not so successful. During his former campaign, in which he had taken Ormuz, he had observed that the greater portion of the Asiatic trade, which still followed the old routes, went not by way of the Persian Gulf, but by way of the Red Sea, and that the great _entrepôt_ was the city of Aden. In order to secure the entire monopoly of the Eastern trade for the new Portuguese route round the Cape of Good Hope, it was therefore necessary to occupy Aden. With this intention Alboquerque sailed westwards in 1513, and on Easter Eve he arrived before the city. On Easter Day he attacked it fiercely with a force of over two thousand soldiers; but he failed, and had to content himself with destroying the shipping in the port. He then explored the Red Sea, and returned to Goa for the last time.

It has been said that Alboquerque was a great statesman as well as a great warrior, and no better proof of this can be adduced than his treatment of the Hindu princes. He alone of Portuguese viceroys recognized the fact the Hindus did not take kindly to the rule of the Mohammedans, and that they would much sooner be ruled by Europeans, if they were only just and fair-minded. It was from Mohammedan powers that the Portuguese had met with such bitter opposition, from the Moplas of Calicut and the King of Bijápur, and if the successors of Alboquerque had but grasped this fact they would have found little difficulty in leading the Hindus against the votaries of Islam. They would then have waged against Mohammedans in India the same relentless war that their ancestors had waged in their own fatherland, and might have established a protectorate over the Hindus without much difficulty. The wide-minded tolerance which Alboquerque showed in his communications with the Hindu princes, he also showed in the details of administration. He maintained the village system, which he found existing in Goa at the time of his conquest, and avoided all appearance of fresh taxation with as much care as a modern English collector. The expedition to Aden was the last he ever undertook, and on December 16, 1515, this truly great man died at Goa, and was buried there by his own directions in the costume of a commander of the Order of Santiago. “In such veneration was his memory held, that the Hindus, and even the Mohammedans, were wont to repair to his tomb, and there utter their complaints, as if in the presence of his shade, and call upon God to deliver them from the tyranny of his successors.”[15] What better proof of the qualities which have won for him the title of Alboquerque “the Great” could be given than this!

Alboquerque. (_After the Engraving by Silva._)]

The tyranny of the successors of Alboquerque has been much exaggerated, and in recording the accusations against them it must be remembered that the Portuguese viceroys and governors were regarded at home as being placed in power for two reasons, the one to send home yearly large fleets laden with the commodities of Asia, purchased at such a low price as to afford the king a handsome profit for his treasury, and the other to propagate the Christian faith. Neither of these causes for the Portuguese dominion were likely to be regarded as satisfactory by the natives of India. The orders of the Directors of the English East India Company to Warren Hastings, to take care that they should have good dividends to declare in England, were not more imperative than the orders of King Emmanuel and King John III. to the Portuguese governors, that fleets heavily laden with Asiatic goods should be despatched to Lisbon without their demanding any money from home for their purchases. This of itself was enough to make the demands of the Portuguese viceroys upon the natives oppressive, and it must also be remembered that men do not leave their fatherland to live in an unhealthy climate for their own pleasure, and that the Portuguese official was as much tempted in the sixteenth century to “shake the pagoda tree” for his own benefit, and to exert his authority to that effect, as an English civil servant in the eighteenth century. Yet this search after gain was not wholly sordid, and many gallant deeds mark the period between the death of Affonso de Alboquerque, and the arrival of the greatest of his successors, Dom João de Castro.

The rule of Lopo Soares de Albergaria, from 1515 to 1518, was chiefly notable for his buildings at Goa, and for his success in opening up a trade with Ceylon by establishing a factory and building a fort at Colombo; and his successor, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, the discoverer of Malacca, and fourth governor, did much to increase the development of this trade. The fifth governor, Duarte or Edward de Menezes, had to meet so many difficulties, and to put down so many insurrections at Ormuz, Malacca, and Ceylon, that he begged earnestly to be relieved; and in 1524 John III. determined to send out Vasco da Gama again, with the title and powers of Viceroy, which had not been conferred since the death of Alboquerque. But the great navigator was now an old man, and never reached Goa to take up his office. He did, however, reach the Indian coast, which he had first seen a quarter of a century before, and died at Cochin, on Christmas Day, 1524. His body was buried in the principal chapel of the Franciscan convent at Cochin, but it did not long remain there; for in 1538 it was removed to Portugal, and finally interred at Belem. Henrique de Menezes, who succeeded Vasco da Gama as governor, managed to put down most of the insurrections, and after a short interval of the rule of Lopo Vaz de Sampaio, Nuno da Cunha, the son of the great navigator, Tristão da Cunha, succeeded to the governorship in 1526. His government was marked by more important events than any since that of Alboquerque, for he extended the influence of Portugal along both the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, and established settlements at Diu, off the coast of Kathiawār on the western, and at Hūgli, at the mouth of the Ganges, on the eastern coast of India. The Portuguese had, ever since the days of Dom Francisco de Almeida, desired to obtain possession of the island of Diu, which could be easily fortified, and would form a good headquarters for their trade and political influence on the north-western coast of India. But all their efforts had been in vain until the year 1535, when Bahādar Shah, the Mohammedan king of Gujarāt, permitted them to build a fortress on the island, and garrison it with their own troops. This he did because he was being closely pressed by Humāyūn, the Moghul emperor, and father of Bābar. But the Mohammedan monarch soon regretted that he had given the Portuguese such an important foothold in his dominions, and it was after a visit he had paid to Nuno da Cunha there that he was killed in a scuffle while disembarking from a Portuguese ship. His successor, Mohammed III. of Gujarāt, regarded the murder of his uncle as a proof of treachery on the part of the Portuguese, and at once besieged Diu by sea and land. But the fortress was nobly defended; the Portuguese women vied with the men in gallantry, and after being reduced to the greatest extremities, the commandant, Antonio de Silveira, beat off the assailants. The other important event of Nuno da Cunha’s rule was the establishment of a Portuguese factory at Hūgli, at the mouth of the Ganges, in the dominions of the King of Bengal, which for the first time tapped the trade of that most wealthy province. These great services during his long rule of twelve years did not protect Nuno da Cunha from malicious accusations being brought against him at Lisbon; exaggerated accounts of his cruelty and of the corruption of his government were reported against him, and in 1538 he was superseded by a viceroy, Dom Garcia de Noronha. Nuno da Cunha died on his way back to Portugal, and the absence of his strong hand was soon felt in India. Garcia de Noronha, a former officer of Alboquerque, died almost immediately after his arrival, and his successors, as governors, Estevão da Gama and Martim Affonso de Sousa distinguished their governments by an expedition to the Red Sea, during which Da Gama was defeated by the Turks at Suez, and by the defeat of De Sousa at Tebelicavi. These checks greatly affected the profits of the Indian trade, and John III. determined to make a fresh departure by despatching to India Dom João de Castro, a hero of the old Portuguese type, and the intimate friend of his uncle, Dom Luis, Duke of Beja.

In summing up thus briefly the history of the Portuguese in India, weight has been laid only upon its political and commercial aspect. It was for purely commercial reasons that Prince Henry “the Navigator” had striven to find a direct sea route to India, and Vasco da Gama’s success had at first been looked upon merely as opening up the Indian trade; the idea of dominion had not then occurred to the minds of the Portuguese, and it was not until it became obvious that the commercial stations or factories would have to be guarded and defended, that troops were despatched as well as factors. The successful defence of Duarte Pacheco against the army of the Zamorin of Calicut, showed how easy it would be for the Portuguese to do more than just defend their factories, if attacked, and Francisco de Almeida commenced a war of offence by attacking native potentates, who refused to allow factories to be established in their dominions. Affonso de Alboquerque originated the idea of playing off the Hindu princes against the aggressive Mohammedans, but none of his successors followed out his policy in this respect. It must not, however, be thought that the Portuguese had any idea of establishing such an empire in India as the English have built up during the last century. Their great system was to occupy, by force if necessary, all important centres of trade along the coasts, and there to erect powerful cities and fortresses, whither the native merchants could bring down their commodities to be purchased and placed on board Portuguese ships for passage to Lisbon. They made no attempt to force their way into the interior, and only sent envoys to native princes to secure protection for the native traders coming to their ports. They occupied, indeed, small rural districts around their most important stations, such as Goa and Diu, which they ruled, according to the fashion adopted by Alboquerque in Goa, by regarding the village communities as units, and regulating taxation accordingly. If these facts are grasped, the tales of Portuguese tyranny and oppression fall to the ground, for the only natives they could oppress were the merchants, who brought goods down to the ports, and the inhabitants who chose to dwell within the Portuguese borders. The merchants and traders did indeed suffer, because they had to sell their merchandise by a scale which cut their profits down much more than they relished, and the inhabitants of the cities were ruled as inferiors, who were bound to be subject to the Europeans in every respect. The Portuguese judges naturally favoured their own people, and thus in many instances treated the natives unjustly, but it may be pointed out that no merchant could be forced to come down to the ports, and that no native could be compelled to dwell in the Portuguese cities against his will. These considerations, joined to a recollection of the inevitable accusations always brought by a subject population against a race of foreign rulers, tend to prove that the accusations of tyranny and oppression brought against the Portuguese have been greatly exaggerated, and it is quite certain that the Hindus were quite as badly, if not worse, treated by their Mohammedan conquerors.

In one respect alone they had a right to complain, and that was, that the Portuguese, not satisfied with extending their commercial transactions, attempted also to overthrow the native religions, just as the Mohammedans did. For the Portuguese conquerors were not only traders, but ardent Christians, firmly convinced of the truth of their religion, and determined to spread it. The squadron commanded by Pedro Alvares Cabral, which had been despatched to India directly after the return of Vasco da Gama, had carried some Franciscan friars, who were left at Cochin, in 1500, to preach their religion. They were speedily followed by other missionaries, chiefly Dominican and Franciscan friars, who increased in number, after the capital of the Portuguese sovereignty was removed to Goa. Great convents arose there, and the missionaries began their labours by preaching in the neighbouring districts, which were divided into parishes after the European fashion, and regarded as ecclesiastical units. The fame of the Goa missionaries was greatly increased by the discovery or pretended discovery of the bones of St. Thomas the Apostle at the spot, which had long attracted the common worship of Mohammedans, Hindus, and native Christians, near Madras, where he was reported to have been martyred. These bones were brought to Goa in 1522, during the government of Duarte de Menezes, and buried with great pomp in the sacred shrine in the Church of St. Thomas at Goa, where they remain to this day. These first Portuguese missionaries were delighted to find native Christians in India when they arrived, and to find them a powerful military caste. They did not at first inquire too minutely into the doctrines and ceremonies of these Christians, who belonged to the Nestorian Church, and far from persecuting them with especial fervour, as was the case later, they regarded the very existence of these Christians as a proof of the vitality of their own faith. After the discovery of the bones of St. Thomas missionaries flocked in increased numbers to India, not only from Portugal, but from Rome itself; and in 1539 Goa was made the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric, and João de Alboquerque was consecrated its first bishop. But the greatest impulse given to the cause of the propagation of the Christian faith was the arrival in India of St. Francis Xavier in 1542, during the government of Martim Affonso de Sousa. This great preacher and great man was not long in making a deep impression upon the natives of India, and the news of the converts he had made without the limits of the Portuguese settlements, attracted a crowd of followers. The Society of the Jesuits, of which he was one of the founders, paid especial attention to this field of mission work, and the progress of Christianity became more and more rapid. This was the golden age of proselytising effort; the Hindus listened with patience to the Christian missionaries, and did not yet begin to persecute them, and the Inquisition which was to bear so heavily upon the native Church of Nestorian Christians, did not inaugurate its forcible methods of conversion until the year 1560.

(_After the copy given by the MS. of Pedro Barrato de Rezende of the original portrait in the Palace of the Viceroys at Goa._)]

The name of St. Francis Xavier suggests that of his illustrious friend, Dom João de Castro, who rivalled upon the battlefield the glories of Francisco de Almeida, Affonso de Alboquerque, and Nuno da Cunha, but who was distinguished above them all for the noble purity of his life. De Castro was the intimate friend of the king’s uncle, Dom Luis, Duke of Beja, with whom he had been educated, and had won his spurs and the admiration of the Emperor Charles V., by his conduct in the expedition to Tunis. He had served with distinction under Garcia de Noronha and Estevão da Gama in the Indian seas, and on his return home had been employed in the difficult task of evacuating the various Portuguese stations in Morocco, which it had been decided to abandon. He was renowned for the purity and even austerity of his character, and it was for this reason that he was appointed, in 1545, viceroy of India. The situation there was a difficult one, for the Sultan of Turkey had, it is said, at the request of the Venetians, who were disgusted at losing their profitable trade with the East, sent a powerful fleet down the Red Sea to exterminate the Portuguese in India. When João de Castro arrived at Goa, he heard that Diu was being again besieged by Mohammed III. of Gujarāt. The news was true, and in spite of the gallant defence of Dom João de Mascarenhas, the besieged were driven to extremities. The viceroy at once proceeded thither, and not only relieved the fortress, but defeated the King of Gujarāt in a pitched battle beneath the walls. This victory, the greatest won by the Portuguese in India, exalted the fame of the general, which was further enhanced by his annihilation of the great Turkish fleet. After these victories João de Castro turned to matters of internal reform, and, by a policy which recalls that of Lord Cornwallis in Bengal in later history, he fixed the salaries of the various civil officials and tried to put an end to the system of corruption and peculation by which they had robbed the royal treasury and the natives alike. He looked with especial disfavour upon the loose and immoral life led by the Portuguese at Goa, and sternly discouraged their luxury, which, as he declared, could only be paid for by robbing the king of his dues. Unfortunately João de Castro, though he was to inaugurate reforms, did not live long enough to see them carried out, for he died in 1548, in the third year of his viceroyalty, in the arms of his friend, St. Francis Xavier, and it is recorded to the glory of this knight of the olden type, that, in spite of his opportunities, he died poor, and bequeathed to his son only his sword, “ornamented,” in the words of his biographer, “with a few stones of no great value, but with a glory beyond price.”

The immediate successors of Dom João de Castro, Garcia de Sá, Jorge Cabral, Affonso de Noronha, and Pedro de Mascarenhas, found no great perils to meet, since the victory of Diu had terrified the Mohammedans for a time, and none of them left any important traces upon the history of the Portuguese in India. The government of Dom Constantino de Braganza, a scion of the most noble house in Portugal next to royalty, marked a return to the system of Dom João de Castro, whom he imitated not only in his internal reforms, but in his gallantry in the field. He it was who took and occupied Daman, which, with Goa and Diu, remains to this day a possession of Portugal. He was still in office when the death of John III. left the crown of Portugal to a minor, and the greatness of his country, and even its independence, was on the point of disappearing.

But the Portuguese power in Asia must not be regarded as being confined to India, though Goa remained its headquarters, and the centre from which the homeward-bound fleets sailed. It will be remembered that Affonso de Alboquerque made expeditions both to the east and west; and his successors, during the century of the Portuguese monopoly of the Asiatic trade, maintained and extended their commercial operations in both directions. But before touching on these extensions attention must be called to the care with which the greatest Portuguese governors kept up the establishments on the south-eastern coast of Africa. Mozambique, which still belongs to Portugal, Mombassa, and Melinda, were all fortified with the utmost science of the time, for the homeward-and outward-bound fleets always paused at one or other or at all of these places before facing or after meeting the perils of the Indian Ocean, in order to refit and take in provisions. The dangers of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope were also sufficiently serious to need rest or preparation, for to mention but two disasters, Francisco de Almeida, the first Viceroy of India was wrecked in Saldanha Bay, and died there on his way back from his command; and a few years after occurred the wreck, imprisonment among the savages, and death of Dom Manoel de Sousa and his wife, which Camoens has immortalized in touching words.[16] More important than these African settlements was the city of Ormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, which became the headquarters of the Persian trade with Europe by means of the Portuguese fleets. It has been seen that Aden was too strong for Alboquerque to capture; one of his successors, Affonso de Noronha, was more successful in 1551, but he only held the key of the Red Sea for a single year, after which it was recaptured by the Turks.

Far more valuable was the settlement of Malacca, which was placed upon a secure footing by Alboquerque. It became the centre of a great trade with Java, Sumatra, and the Spice Islands, and from it Fernão de Magalhães and Francisco Serrão prosecuted their discoveries among the Moluccas and the Celebes. The history of this settlement is full of interest; it was repeatedly attacked by the Achinese and other natives, and some of its sieges are as famous as those of Diu, though not conducted against such civilized opponents. But Malacca was not only the headquarters of the Spice Islands trade, but the port from which explorations were directed northwards. It was from Malacca that Duarte Coelho started to explore the coasts of Cochin China, and made his adventurous journey into Siam, and from Malacca also Fernão Peres de Andrade started to open up trade with the mighty and populous empire of China. There can be little doubt, according to a most distinguished Portuguese historian,[17] that the embassy, which King Emmanuel despatched in 1517 to the emperor of China, was caused by a knowledge of Marco Polo’s travels, and by the interest inspired by his account of the far empire of Cathay. At any rate it was as an ambassador from one monarch to another, and not as a conqueror that Fernão Peres de Andrade was sent to China with letters and presents. And the very fact of this embassy suggests a doubt whether the Portuguese would have ever acted as they did in India had there been a monarch there of such power as the emperor of China was reported to possess, or would have been contented to be traders only. De Andrade safely reached Canton by way of Malacca in 1518, but in spite of his letters and presents he was long detained there and not allowed to proceed to Pekin until 1521. When the Chinese thoroughly understood that the Portuguese came only to trade and not to conquer, they permitted the new-comers to establish a factory, first at Lium-po; and in 1549 at Chin Chee; and, finally, in 1557, in the year of the death of John III., at the request of the Chinese Government, the Portuguese withdrew their other factories and established themselves in the island of Macao, at the mouth of the Canton river. Here they carried on a prosperous trade, and in 1583 they received leave to dispense justice within their island, and in 1587 were recognized as independent there.

The first communication of the Portuguese with Japan is still more curious, and is connected with the history of one of those adventurous travellers who boldly traversed the most distant lands of Asia, long before Englishmen or Dutchmen had ventured to assail the Portuguese monopoly. Fernão Mendes Pinto has for generations been regarded as a typical liar, an accusation generally believed in England from the famous line of Congreve in “Love for Love:” (act ii. scene v.) “Mendes Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.”

But modern inquiry has shown that though he doubtless exaggerated, and drew strange inferences, his curious “Peregrinação” or Travels, which was first published in 1614, and was translated during the seventeenth century into English, French, and Spanish, contains essentially a true account of his adventures. His career is typical of that of many another Portuguese adventurer in the East. He first went to Asia in 1537, and during his wanderings was five times shipwrecked, thirteen times taken captive, and seventeen times sold as a slave. On his way out he was taken prisoner between Socotra and the Persian Gulf, and sold as a slave at Mocha, where he remained until ransomed by the Portuguese governor of Ormuz. After many daring adventures, which savour of piracy, he was engaged in 1542 in a strange expedition to Calempin, near Pekin, which he had organized to plunder the tombs of seventeen Chinese emperors there. On his way back from this sacrilegious attempt he was wrecked off the Chinese coast, and set to work in repairing the Great Wall of China. While there he was made a prisoner by the Tartars during one of their invasions, and after being present at a Tartar siege of Pekin was carried away into Tartary. After various adventures he managed to get back to China, and he then paid his first visit to Japan. His account of the wealth of the Japanese islands excited the minds of the Portuguese officials on the Chinese coast, and a fleet of nine ships was placed under his command at Ning-po, with orders to open up a trade with Japan. Ill luck again pursued him; eight of his ships foundered, and the one upon which he himself sailed, was wrecked on the Loo-Choo Islands. Undiscouraged by all his reverses, he continued to represent the wealth of Japan to his superiors in China and at Malacca, and in 1548 he established a factory in the neighbourhood of Yokohama. Here he did good service, and besides opening up a trade in Japanese goods, he made a large fortune for himself. With this fortune he was on his way back to Portugal in 1553, when the ecclesiastics at Goa worked upon his religious sentiments, which, as in other Portuguese adventurers, must have been very deep, though they do not seem to have influenced him in his dealings with Asiatics, and persuaded him to devote nearly all his wealth to the establishment of a seminary at Goa for the education of missionaries to Japan.

The career of Mendes Pinto illustrates the extraordinary energy and indomitable courage of the Portuguese in Asia, and it is a subject for wonder how one little country, one of the very smallest of the European states, could produce not only great governors and conquerors, like Francisco de Almeida, Affonso de Alboquerque, Nuno da Cunha, and João de Castro, and their lieutenants; and military heroes like Duarte Pacheco, Antonio de Silveira, and João de Mascarenhas, and their soldiers; but also daring adventurers like Duarte Coelho, who boldly penetrated into the interior of Siam, and Mendes Pinto. These men, from the highest to the lowest, seem to have had unbounded confidence in themselves, and, as will be seen later, two Portuguese adventurers, with hardly any support, Sebastião Gonzales and Philip de Brito, established themselves as practically independent princes in Arakan. It has been shown that this extraordinary energy and enterprise exhausted the kingdom of Portugal. Of the thousands who left their homes in Europe, but an infinitesimal portion ever returned. Not one of the early governors of Portuguese India died in Portugal until the time of Dom Constantino de Braganza; they either died in India, like Alboquerque, Vasco da Gama, and Noronha, or on their way home, like Almeida and Nuno da Cunha. The drain upon the energies of the people was immense, and the wonder is not that Portugal was soon exhausted, but that it ever put forth such vitality at all. The greatness of the Portuguese in India was due to the courage and heroism of the Portuguese people, and these qualities they owed to a succession of great kings, who had trained the people to freedom, self-reliance, and constancy; were it not for great kings like John “the Great” and John “the Perfect,” and great princes like Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, and Prince Henry “the Navigator,” the Portuguese nation would never have done what it did, and the Story of Portugal teaches the useful lesson that a people, trained to lofty thoughts and a high conception of duty, will be sure to find scope for its energies, and exhibit the result of its training in noble deeds.