Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/70

 44 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE PORTUGUESE among the Asiatic races. She represented the reaction- ary spirit of medievalism, as against the modern meth- ods of the Protestant nations. To the English and the Dutch, the Indies were simply a new world for com- merce, to the Portuguese they were a vast arena for mingled commerce and crusades. The Indian trade of Portugal had dwindled since her union with Spain in 1580. Philip II wanted money for his wars. America supplied silver, the East Indies drained it away, and Philip could not any more than Charles V pay his troops in pepper and cloves. The Spanish king had guaranteed in 1580 the undis- turbed enjoyment of the East Indian trade to the Por- tuguese, and he kept his word by neglecting their In- dian possessions. His heavy war demands dried up the Portuguese supplies of money and men; and the cap- ital which the Jews formerly furnished had been driven by persecution to Holland. Of the 806 vessels which Portugal sent to India, from the setting forth of Vasco da Gama in 1497 to the English sea victory off Surat in 1612, only 186 sailed during the thirty-two years after the union of the two Iberian crowns in 1580. But the deterioration was in quality as well as in num- bers. For of the sixty-six carracks or ships lost be- tween 1497 and 1612, no fewer than thirty-five perished at sea during the thirty-two years of Spanish domina- tion, besides four taken by the enemy. In 1596 Spain became bankrupt and repudiated her public debts. In 1612 the English ambassador reported from Madrid that " the Indian ships go much poorer than they were