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phonso is as superior to the others, as the nonpareil to the crab- 
apple. 
The commerce of Goa, and the northern parts of Diu and 
Damaun, is now unimportant; the rice, arrack, and oil, are ex- 
ported to different parts of India; one or two ships annually 
arrive from Europe with military stores, and other articles; and 
return thither with printed cottons from Surat, and a few eastern 
necessaries for Portugal and her American colonies: this, with two 
or three vessels trading in Chinese articles from Macao to the 
Malabar coast, now comprise the whole of the Portugueze com- 
merce in India. 
Yet this is the nation, that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- 
ries called the Asiatic seas her own, and astonished the eastern world 
by her martial exploits: the discoveries of Gama, and the con- 
quests of Albuquerque, were truly glorious: the latter subdued 
Goa in 1510, and secured many valuable possessions to the crown 
of Portugal. The emancipation of the Netherlands from the 
tyranny of Philip, was the principal cause of the decline of the 
Portugueze in India: they were then subject to Spain; and the 
Hollanders no longer groaning under the yoke of Alva, sent a 
large armament from Europe, who conquered Cochin, Ceylon, 
the spice-islands, and many other Portugueze settlements; their 
ruin in Asia was also accelerated by the vices of their governors 
and principal officers: the sudden influx of wealth wrought a 
dreadful change in their moral character: the noble conduct and 
patriotic virtues of the first conquerors were annihilated by the ve- 
nality and corruption of their successors. De Gama, Albuquerque, 
and de Castro, appear a different race from D’Acughna, Coree, 
