No. 62. — 1909.] PROCEEDINGS. 



273 



India, tyrannizing over their territories and kingdoms, and usurp- 

 ing (?) them ; so that all the various successes and victories that 

 Your Honour shall have, in one or another part, coming to my 

 Imperial notice, I shall rejoice at as if it were my own affair." 



Now, that seems to me to be of peculiar interest, because it gives 

 to us something resembling a glimpse into what was the very uni- 

 versal feeling of the princes of Asia at the time when the letter was 

 written ; and it is not, I think, because the Dutch nation or the 

 Portuguese nation or the British nation excelled one above the 

 other in any special villainy, but that the Portuguese happened to 

 be first in the field, and to be absolutely without any restraining 

 influence such as was subsequently brought into operation when 

 many European nations were competing each with each. 



You are all aware that the first invasion of the East by Europeans 

 took place at the time of the Roman Empire. The first deputation 

 that the king of Ceylon sent to Europe was sent to the Roman 

 Emperor in the time of Pliny the Elder. You are aware also, no 

 doubt, that it was the Greek pilot, Hippolus, who first fought his 

 way across the Indian Ocean and taught his fellows the art of 

 sailing, not in sight of land but by the aid of the monsoon, into the 

 great unknown, striking across from somewhere in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb to the coast of Western 

 India. You are aware also that the trade of Asia, which was the 

 most precious trade for Europe, was in the hands of Greek and 

 Roman merchants almost until the time of the rise of Muhammad ; 

 when the Muhammadan power spread with astonishing rapidity 

 all over Africa, deep down into the Sudan, throughout Arabia, from 

 Arabia into Persia, from Persia into Afghanistan, southward to 

 Delhi, and formed an enormous barrier between East and West, 

 and gave to the merchants of Arabia and Persia a monopoly which 

 they enjoyed until, Vasco de Gama beating his way round the 

 Cape, Europeans for the first time were able to evade the barrier 

 which the Muhammadan power had reared up against them and 

 had rendered absolutely impossible for them to scale. 



The Portuguese were the nation which effected the great achieve- 

 ment of finding the road round the Cape of Good Hope and breaking 

 down by evasion, not by conquest, the barrier that had so long been 

 reared against the traders of Europe by the power of Islam. And, 

 if you will study the records of the Portuguese, you will find that, 

 to use a familiar colloquialism, they were very much "on the 

 make," — that they came to Asia not with any altruistic motives 

 whatsoever, but purely to secure the trade of Asia that was then 

 being passed into Europe only through the medium of Persia and 

 Arabia, and that they were seeking not so much Empire as 

 convenient trading stations, whereby they might command a 

 monopoly of the trade of Asia. They were animated by an extreme 

 desire for gain in this world and in the next. They wanted to 

 make as much money as they could — and they were not particular 

 as to their methods of making it— in this world, and they hoped by 

 converting their fellow-creatures, whom they named indiscri- 

 minately Pagan, by the argumentative thumbscrew and the 



