t Alcacer Quibir (El-Kasr Kebir) in Morocco.

With the death of Dom Luis de Athaide this rapid sketch of the
successors of Albuquerque must end: he was the last great Portuguese
ruler in the East, and none of the Viceroys who succeeded him deserve
separate notice. The commercial monopoly of Portugal lasted some
years longer, but the fabric of the Portuguese power in India was
utterly rotten, and gave way with hardly a struggle before the first
assaults of the Dutch merchant-adventurers.

The causes of the rapid fall of Portuguese influence in Asia are as
interesting to examine as the causes of their rapid success, and,
like the latter, they may be classed under external and internal
headings. The chief external cause was the union of the Portuguese
crown with that of Spain in 1580. Philip II kept the promise he made
to the Cortes of Thomar, and appointed none but Portuguese to offices
in Portuguese Asia. His accession to the throne was everywhere
recognised in the East, and the Prior of Crato who opposed him found
no adherents there. The first Viceroy whom Philip nominated, Dom
Francisco Mascarenhas, bore a name famous in Portugal, and had no
difficulty in persuading the various captains of fortresses to swear
fealty to the Spanish king. It is curious to note among the Viceroys
whom Philip II nominated to Goa two relations of the most famous
Portuguese conquerors in the East, Mathias de Albuquerque and Dom
Francisco da Gama, grandson of {202} the navigator. In spite of
Philip's loyalty in this respect, the fact that he was King of
Portugal involved that country in war with the Dutch and the English.
The merchants of Amsterdam and London were forbidden to come to
Lisbon for Asiatic commodities, and they consequently resolved to go
to the East and get them for themselves. In 1595 the first Dutch
fleet doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1601 it was followed by
the first English fleet, both being despatched by trading companies.
The Portuguese endeavoured to expel the intruders, but they signally
failed.

The reasons for this failure are to be found in the internal causes
of the Portuguese decline. The union with Spain brought their rivals
into the Eastern seas, but it was their own weakness which let those
rivals triumph. The primary cause of that weakness was the complete
exhaustion of the Portuguese nation. Year after year this little
country, which never exceeded 3,000,000 in population, sent forth
fleets to the