re a conquering and a ruling power, in the hope
that it may be useful to any one wishing to investigate the subject
further than it has been possible for me to do in this volume. I
confine myself to the sixteenth century and to books on political
history, as I have not the knowledge to classify the numerous works
on the history of the Roman Catholic Missions in India, which is
closely bound up with the ecclesiastical history of the Portuguese in
the East.

Before mentioning books of general history, I must draw attention to
the _Commentaries of Albuquerque_ on which this volume is chiefly
based, as indeed all biographies of the great governor must
necessarily be. They were published by his son, Braz de Albuquerque,
in 1557, reprinted by him in 1576, and republished in four volumes in
1774. They have been translated into English for the Hakluyt Society
by Walter de Gray Birch in four volumes, 1875-1884, and from this
translation the quotations in the present volume are taken. The
nature and the authority of this most valuable and interesting work
are best shown by quoting the first sentence of the compiler's
dedication of the second edition to the King of Portugal, Dom
Sebastian. 'In the lifetime of the King, Dom Joao III, your
grandfather, I dedicated to Your Highness these Commentaries, which I
have collected from the actual originals written by the great Affonso
de Albuquerque in the midst of his adventures to the King, Dom
Manoel, your great-grandfather.' The _Commentaries_ have been for
three centuries the one incontestable printed authority for
Albuquerque's career. But in 1884 was published the first volume of
the _Cartas de Affonso de Albuquerque, seguidas de Documentos que as
elucidam_, under the direction of the _Academia Real das Sciencias de
Lisboa_, and edited by Raymundo Antonio de Bulhao Pato. This
collection includes a large number of despatches to the King, dated
February, 1508; October, 1510; April, 1512; August to December, 1512;
November, 1513, to January, 1514; October to December, 1514; and
September to December, 1515; of which two, dated 1 April, 1512, and 4
December, 1513, are of great importance, and veritable manifestoes of
policy. It contains also a more correct version of Albuquerque's last
letter to the King than that given in the _Commentaries_. It is to be
hoped that the many and serious _lacunae_, shown by the above dates,
will be filled in the long-expected second volume of the _Cartas_.