Page:History of India Vol 4.djvu/81

Rh But the age of heroes for Portuguese India passed away, and there were still no signs of a consolidated Portuguese empire in the East. Albuquerque had dreamed of such an empire, in the spirit of a Dupleix or a Clive, and he had exhausted his little nation by the constant drain of colonization. His policy had not been continued, and an empire on Indian soil was abandoned in favour of fortified trading centres supported by the command of the Eastern seas. The forts remained, but no attempt at any more ambitious settlement was made; and should the command of the seas be lost, there was nothing to save the commerce of Portugal with the East. The Spanish annexation in 1580 was the death-blow to Portuguese enterprise in the Indies; but the corruption of the nobles themselves, who found their Capua in the tropical verdure of Old Goa, had already paved the way to ruin. In 1597 the Dutch appeared in the Indies, and a few years later they were joined by the English, upon the incorporation of the first East India Company on the 31st of December, 1600. Even as early as Pyrard de Laval's voyage in 1607 the Dutch had almost destroyed the Portuguese monopoly of commerce with the Far East; and as soon as the English founded their factory at Surat, the Indian trade began to be transferred from Portuguese to English bottoms. The naval victories of Best and Downton off Surat and in Swally Roads decided the command of the sea, and the Indian trade of Portugal practically came to an end.

The opening of English trade with India was fol-