increased commerce, consequent to the settlement of the Portuguese at Goa and other parts, was calculated to reconcile them to a nation, whose warfare on the continent of India was almost entirely limited to contest with the petty princes and chiefs who occupied or claimed the shores where they desired to settle. The effect of the victories gained over these princes was improved by the valour, wisdom, and energy of the great men[2] who first established the Portuguese power in India; but all these impressions were lost by the subsequent conduct of their degenerate successors, who, selected by the favour, or removed by the caprice, of a weak and corrupt court, became the ready instruments of tyranny and oppression. This evil was augmented by the continual changes of their local rulers, and by other circumstances, calculated to bring ultimate ruin on their affairs, even had that not been accelerated by the attack of European states; to which the very considerations which saved them from the hostility of the great native princes of India left them peculiarly exposed. Every settlement which they had made depended exclusively upon their possessing a superiority at sea, and having no rivals either in commerce or war; but their monopoly of the trade of India, for so long a period, arose chiefly from a respect to their right as the first settlers, which extended even to that of the exclusive navigation to that country by the Cape of Good Hope. When this right was invaded, when their fleets came in contact with those of Holland and England, their power fell as rapidly as it had risen; and, like a meteor, left no trace but a recollection of its dazzling and short-lived splendour.