of Portugal are neither
so interesting nor so important as those which saw the building up of
the Portuguese power in the East. Commercially, the value of Vasco da
Gama's voyage and of Albuquerque's victories became greater than
ever. The largest fleets of merchant-ships ever sent to Portugal were
despatched after Philip II of Spain had become also Philip I of
Portugal. The Portuguese monopoly remained unbroken until 1595, and
the nations of Europe, while they grew in civilisation and in love of
luxury, continued until that time to buy from Lisbon the Asiatic
commodities which had become necessary to them. As the commerce
became systematised it grew larger and more profitable, both to the
Royal Treasury which equipped the merchant fleets and sold their
cargoes at Lisbon, and to the individual agents in India, who
purchased the goods {190} which made up these cargoes. But
politically the history of the Portuguese in India becomes less
interesting. There were no more great discoveries; no more great
conquests and great victories; no more grandiose conceptions of
expelling the Muhammadans from the markets of Asia.

Gallant feats of arms were still accomplished, but they only proved
how the Portuguese had degenerated since the days of Albuquerque. The
defence of Goa by Dom Luis de Athaide was brilliant, but after all it
was a defensive operation, and not a victory such as Dom Joao de
Castro had won at Diu, or the storming of a strong city, like the
captures of Goa and Malacca by Albuquerque. There were one or two
high-minded and able men among the successors of the splendid
Albuquerque, but they did not attempt to rival his deeds or carry out
his ideas. The romance of Portuguese history in the East is no longer
bound up with the growth of the power of the nation, but is to be
found rather in the careers of daring adventurers such as Fernao
Mendes Pinto and Sebastiao Gonzales. The complete attainment of
commercial prosperity seems to have destroyed the dream of Empire.

But at the time when the political interest in the career of the
Portuguese in Asia diminishes, the religious interest increases. The
new heroes of Portugal are not her soldiers and her sailors, but her
missionaries. These were the men who made their way into the interior
of India, and who penetrated the {191} farthest East. Japan, China,
and even Tibet, witnessed their presence and heard their preaching;
the great Emperor Akbar gave them a not unkindly wel