The Portuguese people groaned under the powerlessness and poverty which fell to their lot during the Sixty Years’ Captivity. None of the advantages which had been so eloquently prophesied by Christovão de Moura as the inevitable result of a union with Spain had been experienced. Instead of being protected by great Spanish armies, the colonies and trade of Portugal had been left an open prey to the enemies of Spain; it was on account of her union with Spain that the Dutch and English attacked the Portuguese possessions in both East and West; and in return for all she lost, Portugal did not even have the satisfaction of retaining the independence of its local government, but was administered for the benefit of Spaniards alone. The proverbial Castilian haughtiness was especially aggravating to the nobles and people of Portugal; there was no attempt made to unite the two peoples; they kept apart like oil and water, and the traditional hatred of the Spaniard grew to be more intense than ever. The loss of material prosperity and the insolent demeanour of the Spanish officials affected all classes, high and low, and incited them to rebel, and to these causes must be added the influence of the Portuguese writers. The great Camoens had not lived to see the Spaniards supreme in his beloved country, but he had successors during the Sixty Years’ Captivity, who sang in the same lofty strain of the great deeds of the Portuguese warriors during the heroic period. Such poems as the “Primeiro Cerco de Dio” (“The First Siege of Diu”), by Francisco de Andrade; the “Segundo Cerco de Dio,” by Jeronymo Corte-Real; the “Affonso Africano,” by Vasco Mousinho de Quebedo; and the “Malacca Conquistada,” by Francisco de Sá de Menezes, were all calculated to stir the hearts of the Portuguese of the seventeenth century, and to make them desire to be worthy of their great forefathers. Nor were the prose writers less eloquent than the poets in telling of the great deeds of the past; the “Decadas” of Diogo do Couto, and the “Asia,” “Europa,” “Africa,” and “America Portugueza,” of Manoel de Faria e Sousa, continued the work of João de Barros in making the Portuguese proud of their past exploits, while the historians, Bernardo de Brito and Antonio Brandão, in their “Monarchia Lusitana,” told the story of the centuries of independence before Portugal became a province of Spain.