It Is Remarkable That The Portuguese Were Allowed To Monopolize Indian
Commerce For So Long A Time As They Did;
This, however, as Dr. Robertson
observes, may be accounted for, "from the political circumstances in the
state of all those
Nations in Europe, whose intrusion as rivals the
Portuguese had any reason to dread. From the accession of Charles V. to the
throne, Spain was either so much occupied in a multiplicity of operations
in which it was engaged by the ambition of that monarch, and of his son
Philip II., or so intent on prosecuting its own discoveries and conquests
in the New World, that although by the successful enterprize of Magellan,
its fleets were unexpectedly conducted by a new course to that remote
region of Asia, which was the seat of the most gainful and alluring branch
of trade carried on by the Portuguese, it could make no considerable effect
to avail itself of the commercial advantages which it might have derived
from that event. By the acquisition of the crown of Portugal, in the year
1580, the kings of Spain, instead of the rivals, became the protectors of
the Portuguese trade, and the guardians of all its exclusive rights.
Throughout the sixteenth century, the strength and resources of France were
so much wasted by the fruitless expeditions of their monarchs to Italy; by
their unequal contest with the power and policy of Charles V., and by the
calamities of the civil wars which desolated the kingdom upwards of forty
years, that it could neither bestow much attention on commerce, nor engage
in any scheme of distant enterprize.
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