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en a very remarkable captain. He was a man of the strictest veracity, and so pure in the justice he administered that the Hindus and Moors after his death, whenever they received any affront from the Governors of India, used to go to Goa to his tomb and make offerings of choice flowers and of oil for his lamp, praying him to do them justice. He was very charitable to the poor, and settled many women in marriage in Goa. For he was of such a generous disposition that all the presents and gifts which the kings of India bestowed on him--and they were numerous and of great value--he divided among the captains and fidalgos who had assisted him in obtaining them. He was very honourable in his manner of life, and so careful over his language, that the greatest oath which he ever took when he was very much enraged was this: "I abhor the life that I live." He died at the age of sixty-three years, having governed India for six years.'[13] [Footnote 13: Albuquerque's _Commentaries_, vol. iv. pp. 199, 200.] {145} CHAPTER VI THE RULE OF ALBUQUERQUE (_continued_) _His Internal Policy_ The relations of Portugal with Asia were in their origin, and throughout the reign of King Emmanuel, based on the desire to monopolise the commerce of the East with Europe. The idea of the universal conversion of the heathen to Christianity did not develop itself until the reign of King John III, Emmanuel's eldest son and successor. The idea of empire preceded that of proselytism, and was first enunciated by Albuquerque. The three conceptions are all closely united in the later history of the Portuguese in India, but they were evolved separately, had separate origins and distinct aims. The establishment of direct commerce after the voyage of Vasco da Gama, led inevitably to the imperial notions of Albuquerque. The history of the Dutch and English power in the East followed the same lines, and the parallels which can be drawn are numerous and striking. But the idea of universal conversion to Christianity was a purely Portuguese and sixteenth-century idea. The Dutch and the {146} English East India Companies discouraged Christian missionaries; the Portuguese, on the other hand, in the later days of their ascendancy, made their whole system of government subservient to the propagation of the Christian faith. It is not necessary here to draw deductions from this striking contrast. It is purely a matter of spe
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