Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/175

 ALBUQUERQUE IN THE FAR EAST 127 only a source of trade but of tribute; Tidore, for ex- ample, paying in cloves. In 1564 the king of the Moluc- cas yielded to Portugal the dominion and lordship of the whole of his territories. The Portuguese sovereign, indeed, gave full powers to his captain in Malacca " to take possession or part possession, as the case may be, of any lands, places, and islands " which that officer or his subordinates should " discover or arrive at," and " to acquire in my name the lordship of the said places, lands, and islands," as stated in the preamble to the treaty with the Island of Sunda, dated January 27, 1532. Under these powers the royal arms of Portugal were fixed up on many a remote shore, a flag with the cross of Christ being handed to the inhabitants and a green bough deliv- ered by way of ratification. " Having come to the island Amene " (a poor little islet a mile and a half in diameter in the Laccadives), runs one treaty, signed February 4, 1560, which may serve as an example of how the system practically worked, the Portuguese commodore " went on land and destroyed it and slew many people and took a great number, and coming to a convention of peace "it was agreed that the rulers should make over the group of islands to the King of Portugal and pay a tribute of cocoanut fibre, with the pledge of a green branch " in sign of peace and obedience," :i for as much as they did not wish to be vassals of any other king or lord." If this was Portugal's short way with the naked islanders of the Laccadives, she had an ascending scale