Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/168

 120 THE PORTUGUESE POLICY IN THE EAST partly by war; how it was maintained by a combined naval and military force; what the monopoly consisted of, and the mercantile methods by which it was worked. The more important treaties of Portugal in the East followed a common type, and Albuquerque's first agreement with Ormuz may be taken as an illustra- tion of the whole. In that instrument the " King of Ormuz " (1) acknowledges himself a vassal to the Por- tuguese sovereign, (2) grants a site for a factory and fortress, (3) submits to a yearly tribute and agrees to a payment toward the expenses of the troops which had coerced him. These three main heads of political dependence, a fortified factory, and a tribute or money payment, supplied the model for subsequent treaties, wherever the Portuguese found themselves strong enough to enforce them. They were the standard of subjection which the Portuguese sought to impose on the coast-powers from the Red Sea to the Moluccas. The system developed into an endeavour to exempt Portuguese vessels from dues at the Indian ports and to extract a revenue for Portugal from the local cus- toms tariff. But the length of the coast-line to be coerced, and the unequal forces employed for the task, render generalizations unsafe. The treaty-history of Portugal in the East may be best understood from some characteristic examples. Calicut, being defiant and one of the strongest posi- tions on the Indian coast, for a time treated on advan- tageous terms. The compact of 1513 provided for the exchange of pepper and ginger at fair rates for the