Arnold Wright

“ Men in whose veins the most aristocratic blood of Portugal ran gave to the local society a distinction uncommon in an Eastern settlement. On all hands were evidences of refinement and luxury, and of the splendours of a powerful seat of government. Even to-day, when Goa is little more than a heap of mouldering ruins, it is possible to realize in the survivals of the past something of the dignified life which was once lived in this the earliest scene of European colonization in India. ”

“ An agreement of a far-reaching kind was, as the upshot of the negotiations, arranged between the English and the Persian commander. Amongst the conditions were: (1) that the spoils should be equally divided; (2) that the yield of the customs at Ormuz, when taken, should be shared in future as between the two nations, the English being for ever customs free; (3) that Christians captured should be at the disposal of the English; and (4) that the Persian commander should pay half the cost of the detention of the ships. ”

“ The Portuguese were in too strong a position to be attacked with any hope of success, and they showed no disposition to come out into open water, where the conditions would be more equalized. The English commanders, therefore, decided to devote their attention to the adjoining island of Kishm, where the Portuguese had built a fort, and were conducting a not unsuccessful fight against a large body of Persian troops which had been sent against them. ”

“ Francis Xavier would not have disgraced a European capital, and it was only one of many superb religious structures of which the city could boast, for the Inquisition, then in the plenitude of its awful power, cast an unholy lustre over the settlement. ”

“ In many countries the sovereign had an absolute monopoly of the trade, and it was death to any of their subjects to enter into independent commercial relations with foreigners. The system was almost universal in Further India and Indo-China, and though in India the lordly Mogul did not deign to soil his hands with actual trading operations, he was keenly alive, as we have seen, to the importance of keeping a tight hand on all commercial operations. ”

“ Whatever his motive may have been, the effect of his favours to the English was precisely that indicated. The Portuguese took the alarm immediately they found that the East India Company was sending its ships to the Gulf, They foresaw in this new intrusion another and possibly a mortal blow to a trade which had already been reduced considerably from its former splendid proportions to almost insignificant dimensions. They accordingly nerved themselves for a big effort to oust the intruders. ”