[Footnote 15: Albuquerque's _Commentaries_, vol. iii. pp. 20, 21.]

The conquest of Goa had an immense effect upon all the sovereigns on
the western side of India. Not only did the Muhammadan King of
Ahmadabad send ambassadors to Albuquerque asking to make an alliance
with him, but the Hindu Zamorin of Calicut, hitherto the principal
foe of the Portuguese, also sued for peace. Albuquerque took a high
hand with the latter; too much Portuguese blood had been shed in
Calicut for him to desire a treaty of alliance. The only terms he
would accept were that he should have permission to build a fortress
in the very heart of Calicut commanding the harbour. As the Zamorin
would not accept these terms, which would leave his capital and his
commerce at the mercy of the Portuguese, the negotiations were broken
off. With Mahmud Shah Begara, King of Ahmadabad, communications were
carried on in a more friendly tone. The King promised to release the
men who had been {92} wrecked with Dom Affonso de Noronha, and
ordered the Emir Husain to leave his dominions at once. He even
offered the island of Diu as a site for a Portuguese fortress, but
Albuquerque had not sufficient strength in India at that moment to
accept the offer.

The conquest of Goa, both in its immediate and in its ultimate
results, was one of the greatest achievements of Albuquerque's
governorship. It gave the Portuguese a commercial and political
capital; it showed the neighbouring rulers, both Hindu and
Muhammadan, that the Portuguese intended to remain on the Malabar
coast as a governing power, and not simply, like the Arab Moplas, as
a commercial community; and the gallantry shown in the final assault,
as well as during the sojourn of the fleet in the harbour of Goa,
proved to the people of India that a new warrior race had come
amongst them. Its ultimate results are quite as important. Goa, by
the policy of the successors of Albuquerque, concentrated the whole
trade of the Malabar coast. To increase the prosperity of Goa the
earlier centres of trade, such as Calicut and Cochin and Quilon, were
purposely deprived of their freedom to buy and sell; Goa became the
seat of the Viceroys and Governors of Portuguese India; its wealth
passed into a proverb; and though the glory of Golden Goa lasted but
a century,[16] it was during that century one of the most splendid
cities on the face of the earth.

[Footnote 16: On the later history of Goa, see Hunter's _Imperial
Gazet