The possession of Goa changed the whole position of the Portuguese in India. Remote kings who had hitherto looked on the new-comers as passing freebooters now sent ambassadors offering friendship and treaties. Barely six months after taking Goa, Albuquerque stormed and sacked Malaca, in Malay, a city which now belongs to the British Empire and has about 100,000 inhabitants, and which then, in Albuquerque’s own words, was “_muito grande cousa_.”[15] Of all the great spoils the Governor characteristically reserved for himself only two great bronze lions which he intended to have placed on his tomb. But his ship, laden with the costliest plunder, much of which was intended for King Manoel, met with a violent storm and foundered. Albuquerque, dressed in a brown coat and anything that came to hand, escaped on a raft. In 1513 he carried out his long-cherished project of an attack on Aden, whence, he said, “vermilion, currants, almonds, opium, horses, dates, gold” went to India. The Portuguese assaulted but failed to take the town--in their eagerness the ladders broke again and again under their weight--and it was not safe to blockade it for fear of adverse winds, lack of water, and the large and speedy assistance the enemy might expect. Swift cameleers carried the news of the attack in fifteen days to Cairo, and, generally, the presence of a large Portuguese fleet in the Red Sea made a far-reaching impression. Albuquerque set out to attack Aden again in 1515, but was occupied for some time at Ormuz, and fell ill there. He started to return to India, and on the way received tidings from a passing boat that his successor to the Governorship of India had been appointed, and many important posts given to his personal enemies. This was his death-blow. Only a year before he had written to the King of his determination to continue in India for the rest of his life, at whatever sacrifice to himself, for the sake of maintaining and strengthening the empire he had won. Now heartbroken he exclaimed, “Out of favour with men for the sake of the King, and out of favour with the King for the sake of men. It is good to make an end.” He dictated a last brief letter to the King “in the throes of death,” recommending his son, and died as the ship came in sight of Goa, straining his eyes to see the tower of the church he had founded (December 1515). Next day his body, dressed in the habit of Santiago, was carried ashore and buried amid universal grief. The natives perhaps mourned him sincerely, since he had worked for their prosperity and his attitude towards them, as distinguished from the Moors, had always been kindly. The gods, they said, had summoned him to war in heaven. His enemies continued to fear him even dead, so that King João III declared that India would be safe so long as Albuquerque’s body remained there, and it was only in 1566 that his bones were brought to Portugal.