Against such arguments the honour of a Christian nation, the lust of territorial aggrandisement, and above all the greed of gold, prevailed in the end. Twenty ships were despatched, in three squadrons, under the general command of the first adventurer, Vasco da Gama, and other commanders followed in rapid succession. The original plan of campaign was still adhered to. Whatever the cost, the Moors must be dislodged from Calicut, the resistance of the native king broken, and the control of the trade transferred to the Portuguese, whose king the Zamorin must acknowledge as his sovereign. Beaten at every point in fair fight, the Zamorin maintained his ground by fraud and treachery. The stream of wealth still poured into Portugal through Cochin and Cananor, immensely augmented by the spoils of captured Moorish vessels, but the Zamorin still held his ground. In an interval during which the Portuguese forces were weakened by the withdrawal of returning ships, he attacked and destroyed Cochin. The Portuguese having retaken it, restored its prince, and built a strong fort for themselves, the infuriated Rajah, having roused such of his neighbours as were amenable to his appeal, seized a similar opportunity and assailed Cochin with fifty thousand men. In a campaign of five months he was defeated and slain by the Portuguese under Duarte Pacheco, who earned the title of the Portuguese Achilles; but his successor maintained the same attitude, and despatched an embassy to the Sultan of Egypt, asking for aid in resisting the invaders. The Sultan sent word to the Pope threatening to destroy the holy places at Jerusalem if the Portuguese persisted in their invasion of India. The only effect of this empty menace was to stimulate the Portuguese King to renewed efforts on a larger scale. The crisis of the struggle was approaching; and in view of this a more comprehensive scheme was adopted. Abandoning the attempt to reduce the obstinate resistance of a single prince, it was determined to attack the Muslim maritime system in all its parts, and to establish a new emporium on the Malabar coast as the commercial and naval centre of the new Portuguese eastern empire. Already the Moorish traders in search of the produce of the Far East had begun to avoid the Malabar coast, and to make their way from the Arabian and African ports by a new route to Malacca. It was resolved to seize this key of the Far East without delay, and to gain possession of the Moorish settlements on the African coast, and the Arabian ports of Hormuz and Aden. By exacting heavy duties at these places the whole trade would gradually be diverted, and the Portuguese would ultimately control the Red Sea itself. The chief African settlements were seized with little difficulty by Francisco de Almeida; and the rest of the programme was successfully carried out by Affonso de Albuquerque (1509-15). The excellent natural harbour of Goa had already been chosen as the new seat of the Portuguese dominions. The town, built by the Muslim fifty years previously, had lately fallen, together with the adjacent country, under the swav of the powerful Adil Khan; and it was well known that here the Muslim enemy intended to concentrate their forces with the view of driving the Portuguese from the Indian seas. A Muslim pirate who foresaw the issue of the contest allied himself with the Portuguese, on the terms that he should be appointed guaztt or port-admiral of Goa, and farmer of the large demesne lands which the conquest would annex to the Portuguese Crown; and on March 4, 1510, Albuquerque entered Goa and received the keys of the fortress. The dispossessed Hindoo inhabitants welcomed the Portuguese as deliverers; and although Adil Khan forced his way again into the town, compelling the Portuguese to evacuate, it was recaptured by Albuquerque (November 25), and strongly fortified. Many Portuguese received grants of land, and married native women; the confiscated estates of the Moorish mosques and Hindoo temples were annexed to the great church of S. Catherina: a mint was set up, the new coinage having on one side the cross of the Order of Christ, on the other ManoePs device of a sphere, lately adopted by him to signalise the vast accession which his dominions had now received. Hindoos and Moors returned to the settlement, acknowledging the Portuguese supremacy; and Goa thus became the most thriving port of the Malabar coast.
Albuquerque followed up this success by sailing in person for Malacca, where he arrived in June, 1511. A few Portuguese had already been allowed to settle there for the purpose of trade. They had been treacherously attacked by the Moors, and their property confiscated; and although a few effected their escape, several were still held prisoners. Mohammad, the Sultan of Malacca, having refused Albuquerque’s demand for their liberation and the restitution of their property, Albuquerque assaulted and sacked the town, capturing hundreds of guns, erected a fortress, set up a mint, and built a church dedicated to the Virgin. The native princes of the adjoining mainland and islands hastened to offer their friendship and urge the Portuguese commander to make his footing secure. In this he completely succeeded, for although repeated attempts were made to dislodge the Portuguese, the settlement was successfully defended, and became, as was foreseen, a base from which all the Muslim settlements in the Far East were gradually reduced to subjection.
The news of the capture of Malacca was in due time communicated to the Court of Rome. A public thanksgiving was appointed, marked by processions in which the Pope figured in person. Later came an embassy from Portugal, headed by Tristao da Cunha, under whom Albuquerque had seen his first service in the East. The presents of gold, jewels, and oriental embroidery, an earnest of the future wealth to be drawn by the Holy See from the East, were borne in triumphal procession. They were followed by richly caparisoned Persian horses, leopards, a panther, and a gigantic elephant, which knelt thrice before the Holy Father; and in reply to an address Leo X delivered a Latin oration, in which he praised the maintenance of peace by the Christian powers, and spoke hopefully of the union of their forces against the Muslim. Meanwhile Albuquerque, having almost swept the Turkish and Arab ships from the Indian sea, was preparing to carry the war into their own waters. Early in 1513 he sailed from Goa with twenty vessels, and after an unsuccessful attack on Aden entered the Red Sea. His successes had filled his mind with the wildest expectations. By an alliance with the Christian sovereign of Abyssinia he dreamed of establishing himself on the Upper Nile, cutting a canal through the mountains separating it from the Red Sea, diverting the river, and thus turning into a desert the most flourishing of the Muslim countries. Another project was to land a force in the harbour of Yembo, plunder the temple of Medina, and carry away Mohammad’s coffin, to be held until the holy places of Jerusalem should be surrendered in exchange for it. A fiery cross, seen over the African coast as he waited for a wind, was hailed as an omen of success; but prudence and the affairs of Goa suggested his return, and after a very limited reconnaissance of the Red Sea coasts he returned to India. The voyage confirmed his belief in the capture and fortification of Aden as the necessary means of effecting a junction with Abyssinia at the port of Massowah. This once accomplished,