Albuquerque's own character counted for much in his success. He was comparatively an old man when he took up his governorship, and his scheme of policy was by that time carefully matured. To that policy he adhered unflinchingly from the beginning to the end of his career. His extraordinary tenacity of purpose was one of his most remarkable characteristics. He swore at the time of his first repulse at Ormuz that he would return, and he did. He insisted on the capture and retention of Goa, in spite of many varieties of opposition, and he gained his point. There can be little doubt that had he survived he would have succeeded in his cherished ambition of conquering Aden and closing the Red Sea to the commerce of the East. With this tenacity of purpose went a wide and {169} remarkable tolerance. The favourable countenance he showed to the Hindus was due to his nature as well as to his scheme of policy. With regard even to the Muhammadans, whom he hated, he could show a certain tolerance which would not have been found in a crusader. He sent embassies to Sháh Ismáil, and the Kings of Gujarát and Bijápur, and was ready to bear with the Moslems in Malacca and in India, until he grasped the irreconcilable nature of their enmity to the Portuguese. He possessed an intuitive knowledge of the best way to deal with Asiatic peoples. He understood the importance of pomp and ceremony, and the influence exerted by the possession of the prestige of victory. Throughout there was something of the grandiose in his nature and his views. His project of establishing an empire in India naturally seemed absurd to his contemporaries. And the attempt to realise it exhausted the Portuguese nation. But the existence of the English empire in India has shown that Albuquerque's idea was not impracticable in itself; it was his nation which proved inadequate to the task. Albuquerque's courage and his cruelty, his piety and his cunning, were not peculiar to himself; they were shared by other men of his time and country. But his tenacity of purpose, his broadminded tolerance, and his statesmanlike views were absolutely unique, and helped to win for him his proud designation of Affonso de Albuquerque the Great. {170} CHAPTER VII THE SUCCESSORS OF ALBUQUERQUE _Nuno da Cunha and Dom João de Castro_ It is not intended in this volume to give a complete history of the Portuguese in India. But it is both interesting and instructive to examine the policy of the successors of Albuquerque, and to note the growth of the causes which led to the destruction of the empire that he founded. The following chapters are intended to give a short sketch of the leading features of the history of the Portuguese in India, up to the time when Portugal lost its independence and was united with Spain. Special attention will be given to the points in which Albuquerque's successors fulfilled or diverged from his ideas of conquest and government.