It is important to observe the position of Portugal in Asia and South America during the half-century which succeeded the “Sixty Years’ Captivity,” and to see how the despised discovery of Pedro Alvares Cabral was to more than take the place of the vaunted Asiatic connection commenced by the voyage of Vasco da Gama. The heavy blows struck by the Dutch and English against the Portuguese monopoly of the Eastern trade before the successful revolution in 1640, have already been noticed, and the ruin of the Portuguese in Asia was consummated by the Dutch during the long naval war which succeeded the attack upon their settlements in Brazil. The China trade had not attained very important dimensions, so the Dutch left the Portuguese undisturbed at Macao, but they destroyed their settlements in the island of Formosa, and the English absorbed what trade there was by their factory at Canton. It was the spice trade and the command of the Spice Islands, which the Dutch chiefly coveted, and of which they obtained a monopoly, which they practically retain to this day. After the foundation of Batavia, all the efforts of the Dutch were directed against Malacca, which, though in a decayed state, was yet mistress of no inconsiderable trade; twice they stirred up the Achinese to attempt the conquest of Alboquerque’s famous settlement, but the Portuguese beat off the natives, and it was not until 1640 that the Dutch destroyed the rival of Batavia. The Portuguese made no further effort to share the spice trade, and after the massacre of the English at Amboyna in 1624, the more dangerous rivalry of the merchants of that nation was also withdrawn. In India, the Dutch made a point of securing the pepper trade only, and left the English to absorb that of the products of Northern India, of the muslins of Dacca and the brocades of Ahmadabad and Surat. The Portuguese repulsed the Dutch from Goa in 1639, but these determined traders were not to be beaten; in 1662, in spite of the peace which had been concluded by the intervention of England, they took Cochin, the principal Portuguese station in Southern India, and by 1664 were masters of all the chief pepper ports on the Malabar coast. They were equally successful in Ceylon, where they captured Jafnapatam, the last important Portuguese port, in 1658; and in 1669, they expelled the Portuguese from the Coromandel coast likewise, and took S. Thomé and Macassar. In Northern India the English were the most formidable rivals of the Portuguese. After the capture of Hūglī by the orders of Shah Jehān, the Portuguese dropped all communication with Bengal, and the trade of that important province fell into the hands of the English. On the other side of India, the English were equally successful. Their victory off Surat had broken the prestige of Portugal, and the trade with Gujarāt, Kathiawār, and Sind was chiefly in their possession. So weak indeed had the Portuguese become, that Diu, the city