In 1508, Albuquerque arrived in India, and took the chief command or the Portuguese : hitherto they had not acquired a good port ; and as this object of the first consequence, he attacked Goa, and took it it; little dif ficulty ; he was, however, unable to retain t ; for the na tives besieged it so closely, that he was in a short time in want of provisions, and compelled to abandon it and retire to his ships. He did not, notwithstanding, give up his ob ject ; but returning in a few months, he took it by surp9se, and fortified it in such a manner, as to render it quite im pregnable by the forces of the natives. It now became the metropolis of the settlements of the Portuguese in In dia, from which they spread their conquests and their com merce over the Eastern seas.
As the Venetians had been deprived of the most abun dant and certain source of their riches by the discovery of the Cape of Good Ilope, and the subsequent commerce by sea between Portugal and India, they stirred up the Sultan of Egypt to unite with them in the attempt to drive the Portuguese out of India. This he was easily induced to do, as he also had felt the consequences of the Portuguese voyages to India, in the reduced receipt of the transit duties, welch he had been accustomed to levy on all Indian mer chandise passing through his dominions.
into Accordingly an Egyptian fleet, equipped principally with materials sup plied by the Venetians, made its way nto the Indian sea, and tiring joined by the fleet of the king of Cambay, at tacked the Portuguese, at first with some success , the lat ter, however, having received reinforcements front Portu gal, soon regained their superiority.
About the sante time, the Portuguese having gained the command of the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, the com merce between India and Europe by these routes entirely ceased. Thus secure from competition on the western shores of India, they next turned their thoughts to con quests on the East. Neglecting the coast of Coromandel, which possessed no ports, they passed on towards the regions beyond the Ganges, and the Al alay peninsula, of the riches of which they had heard wonderful accounts from the mer chants of Surat. Their conquests here, however, and in the Spice islands, do not fall within our notice. In the middle of the 16th century, they had become masters of the east coast of Africa ; of the coasts of Arabia and Per sia ; of the two peninsulas of India; of the Moluccas ; and or the trade to China and Japan: they seized ever y vessel that sailed on the Indian seas without their permis sion, ravaged the coasts, insulted the native princes, de stroyed the temples of their religion, and established the inquisition at Goa. But in the midst of these abuses of
their power, their settlements were divided and torn by fac tions (the tribute paid by one hundred and fifty princes of India, as well as the revenue derived from other sources, was squandered by individuals; so that the forts and the ships were in a very ruinous condition. In this state of things, the Portuguese empire in India must soon have fallen, had not Juan de Castro arrived as viceroy. But great as his talents and virtues were, and indefatigable and wise as he was in his endeavours to restore his countrymen to their former character, the task was beyond his powers ; and the native piinces, at last roused by the indignities and oppres sion under which they had so long suffered, and encouraged by the effeminacy and supineness of their oppressors, united in a league to exterminate them. In this object they would have succeeded, had nut reinforcements ar rived from Portugal at this critical moment, by the assist ance of which, the attack made by the native princes on the Portuguese establishments in 1567 was repulsed. On the union of Portugal to Spain, which took place soon af terwards, in 1580, the former country lost nearly all her power and her establishments in India, in the manner which we shall presently describe. At this time they possessed the following places : Damacun, Choul, Bassein, Salset te, Bombay, and Goa ; they had factories at, and influenced the governments of Dabul, Onore, Barcelore, Mangalore, Cananore, Calicut, Cranganore, Cochin, and Quilon ; they had also factories in the Bay of Bengal, at Negapatam, and St Thome, with commercial stations in the province of Bengal. All these possessions and esta blishments were independent of what they had in Malac ca, the Eastern Archipelago, Sm. At present the settle ment of Goa, which still nominally remains to them, is al most wholly abandoned by the mother country, and its in habitants scarcely speak their national language intelli gibly. Their poverty is such, that women of the best fami lies earn their subsistence by making lace or artificial flowers, and working muslin. The remaining Portuguese possessions aee Damaun, a sea port in the province of Aurtmgabad, 100 miles north from Bombay, Dhelli in the island of Timour, and Macao in China.