[22] An East India company formed in Denmark sent an expedition in 1618, which formed a settlement in the state of Tanjour, India, where the Danes built Tranquebar and Fort Dannebourg; for a time they carried on a thriving trade, but the influence of the Dutch crowded them aside in India, and the company finally surrendered its charter and made over its settlements to the government. In 1670 a new company was formed; but it was even more unfortunate than the first one, and, having become bankrupt, was extinguished in 1730. Two years later, another company was organized, which obtained a charter for forty years, with many privileges, and this was extended (1772) for twenty years. See Raynal’s Établissemens et commerce des Européens dans les Indes, i, pp. 548–566. [↑]
[23] For full account of the discoveries, wars and conquests of the Portuguese in the East Indies, with accounts of India, China, Japan, and of the people of those countries, see Raynal’s Établissemens et commerce des Européens dans les Indes (Genève, 1780), i, pp. 1–150. At the end, he states “the causes which brought on the ruin of the Portuguese in India.” “This little nation, finding itself the entire mistress of the richest and most extensive commerce in the world, was soon composed of merchants, traders, and sailors, who were consumed in long navigations. She lost also the foundation of all real power—agriculture, national industry, and population; there was no proportion between her commerce and the means of continuing it. Still worse, she aimed at being a conquering power, and embraced an extent of territory which no nation in Europe could preserve without weakening itself. This little country, but moderately populous, was constantly wasting its inhabitants as soldiers, as sailors, and as colonists.” “As the government soon changed its projects for commerce into schemes for conquest, the nation, which had never possessed the spirit of commerce, assumed that of brigandage. Clocks and watches, firearms, fine cloths, and some other kinds of merchandise which since have been carried to the Indias were not then at the degree of perfection which they have since attained, and the Portuguese could only carry money there. Soon they grew tired of this, and forcibly took away from the Indians what they had at first purchased from those peoples.” “Of all the conquests which the Portuguese had made in the seas of Asia, there now remain to them only Macao, part of the island of Timor, Daman, Diu, and Goa. At present, Macao sends to Timor, to Siam, and to Cochinchina a few small vessels of little value. It sends five or six to Goa, laden with goods that were rejected at Canton, and most of which belong to the Chinese traders. These latter ships carry return cargoes of sandalwood, India saffron, ginger, pepper, linen goods, and all the articles for which Goa can trade on the coast of Malabar or at Surat with its sixty-gun ship, its two frigates, and its six armed shallops. As a result of this inaction, the colony cannot furnish more than three or four cargoes a year for Europe; and the value of these does not exceed 3,175,000 livres, even since 1752, when this commerce ceased to be under the yoke of monopoly,—excepting its sugar, snuff, pepper, saltpeter, pearls, sandalwood, and eaglewood, the exclusive purchase and sale of which is carried on by the crown.” “Such is the degraded state into which the Portuguese have fallen in India, [that people who furnished] the hardy navigators who discovered it, the intrepid warriors who subjugated it. The theater of their glory and opulence, it has become that of their ruin and disgrace. Formerly a viceroy, and since 1774 a governor-general, both despotic and cruel; a military force turbulent and undisciplined, composed of 6,276 soldiers, black or white; magistrates whose venality is notorious; an unjust and rapacious administration: can all these kinds of oppression, which would ruin even the most virtuous people, regenerate a nation that is idle, degraded, and corrupt?” [↑]
[24] The English jurist John Selden published (London, 1635) a work that attracted great attention, entitled Mare clausum seu de dominio maris libri duo. A later edition (1636) added to this a considerable amount of matter relating to the navigation rights of the Dutch.
The Macanaz mentioned by Viana in several places was probably Melchor Rafael de Macanaz, a fiscal of Castilla early in the eighteenth century (Revue Hispanique, vi, p. 455). [↑]
[25] At the foot of the MS. page is written the following comment, in the same hand as that mentioned ante, p. 249, note 130: “The author agrees to this opinion, which is contrary to his own, through fear of ignorant and angry ecclesiastics.” [↑]
[26] Spanish, como en un Presidio, alluding to the custom of banishing a political offender to some remote military post, from which escape was, of course, practically impossible. [↑]
[27] In the text, vicias, a word which does not appear (save as a botanical term) in the Spanish dictionaries; its translation, therefore, is necessarily conjectural. [↑]
[28] An alloy of copper and nickel, known as “white copper” and “German silver,” and to the Chinese as Packfong and petong. [↑]
[29] The Dictionnaire universel de commerce of Jacques Savary des Bruslons was published at Paris, 1723–30; it had numerous editions, and was translated into English (London, 1751–55). [↑]
[30] In text, capingotes; this word is not in the dictionaries, and suggests the blunder of some amanuensis in confusing capirotes and redingotes. [↑]