[Illustration: FIGURES OF MEN AT AN AUTO DA FÉ.
(_From "Les Royaumes d'Espagne," &c. La Haye,_ 1720.)]
The last twenty years of the sixteenth century, comprised in the reign of Philip II., from 1580 to 1598, mark the height of the wealth and power of the Portuguese in the East, but their fall into nothingness there during the reigns of Philip III. and Philip IV. was as rapid as their success had been astounding. The first great blows were struck by the Dutch merchants, whose ships were sent out at their own expense, and in no way protected by the State. In 1597 two years after Houtman had led a Dutch fleet round the Cape, the Dutch established a factory in Java. In 1601 they defeated the Portuguese governor of Malacca, and took that city; in 1607 they conquered the Portuguese settlements in the Moluccas and Sumatra; and in 1618 they founded Batavia, which became the capital of the trade of the Spice Islands, and soon not only took the place of Malacca, but rivalled Goa. Not satisfied with the trade of the further East, they attacked that of China also, and in 1635 occupied the island of Formosa. At a later date they even ousted the Portuguese from their chief settlements in India and Ceylon, always excepting Goa, which, according to Catholic belief, has ever been preserved to the Portuguese by the holy bones of St. Francis Xavier. Meanwhile, just as the Dutch broke the power of the Portuguese in the Spice Islands and China, a new power had arisen to attack their Indian monopoly. The ancient allies of the Portuguese, the English, now made no distinction between them and their bitter enemies, the Spaniards, and during the last forty years of the "Sixty Years' Captivity," they laid the foundation of their empire in India. During the reign of Elizabeth, the English had sacked Pernambuco in 1594, destroyed Fort Arguin on the African coast in 1595, and ravaged the Azores in 1597; during that of James I. they attacked the Indian trade of Portugal. As was the case with the Dutch, the assault upon the Portuguese monopoly was the work of private traders, not of the State. This is not the place to trace the slow growth of the English power in India, but it is enough to say that the English ships went to Asia with no idea of conquest, and solely with the desire to trade. This the Portuguese desired to hinder, and in trying to prevent the English from taking on board cargoes at Surat in 1615, the Portuguese were defeated by Captain Best, and thus lost their reputation for invincibility on the north-west coast of India. The English, instead of showing a bold front, made efforts to live in harmony with the Indian kings, and especially with the Great Mogul, and were rewarded by being looked upon with favour instead of with suspicion, and being allowed to set up many commercial agencies. As traders, the English merchants had no wish to go to war and maintained no armies to defend their agencies, and the only offensive operation they undertook against the Portuguese was in 1622, when they assisted the Persians to capture Ormuz. These rapid onslaughts completely overthrew the Portuguese power in Asia. The Dutch quickly absorbed all the trade of the further East, and of the Spice Islands in particular; the English gained a good hold upon that with Persia and North-western India; and in 1629 the Portuguese commerce with Bengal was almost destroyed by the capture of their headquarters, H[=u]gl[=i], by Shah Jeh[=a]n who killed one thousand Portuguese, and carried over four thousand, including women and children, into captivity. Even smaller European nations attacked their monopoly, and in 1616 the Danes established themselves at Serampore and Tranquebar. Against all these blows, Portugal made little resistance; Golden Goa was shorn of its pre-eminence; and the Portuguese fleets when homeward bound were preyed upon by the Dutch and English cruisers.