ox were
bound to accept, and did accept for two generations. All the oceans,
except the North Atlantic, were closed to the navigators of other
nations; and these two peoples were given, for a century, the
opportunity of showing in what guise they would introduce the
civilisation of Europe to the rest of the globe. Pioneers as they were
in the work of imperial development, it is not surprising that they
should have made great blunders; and in the end their foreign dominions
weakened rather than strengthened the home countries, and contributed
to drag them down from the high place which they had taken among the
nations.

The Portuguese power in the East was never more than a commercial
dominion. Except in Goa, on the west coast of India, no considerable
number of settlers established themselves at any point; and the Goanese
settlement is the only instance of the formation of a mixed race, half
Indian and half European. Wherever the Portuguese power was
established, it proved itself hard and intolerant; for the spirit of
the Crusader was ill-adapted to the establishment of good relations
with the non-Christian peoples. The rivalry of Arab traders in the
Indian Ocean was mercilessly destroyed, and there was as little mercy
for the Italian merchants, who found the stream of goods that the Arabs
had sent them by way of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf almost wholly
intercepted. No doubt any other people, finding itself in the position
which the Portuguese occupied in the early sixteenth century, would
have been tempted to use their power in the same way to establish a
complete monopoly; but the success with which the Portuguese attained
their aim was in the end disastrous to them. It was followed by, if it
did not cause, a rapid deterioration of the ability with which their
affairs were directed; and when other European traders began to appear
in the field, they were readily welcomed by the princes of India and
the chieftains of the Spice Islands. In the West the Portuguese
settlement in Brazil was a genuine colony, or branch of the Portuguese
nation, because here there existed no earlier civilised people to be
dominated. But both in East and West the activities of the Portuguese
were from the first subjected to an over-rigid control by the home
government. Eager to make the most of a great opportunity for the
national advantage, the rulers of Portugal allowed no freedom to the
enterprise of individuals. The result was that