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England, Portugal and the Estado da India c. 1500–1635

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

G. V. Scammell
G. V. Scammell
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Extract

In January 1635 there arrived in Goa a delegation from the English East India Company. The affluent air and dignified behaviour of its members, not to mention the obviously well-gunned and well-equipped ships that had brought them, greatly impressed the Portuguese, according to the then viceroy, the redoubtable Conde de Linhares. After the solution of the usual niceties of protocol, and after the viceroy had expatiated on the iniquities of England's erstwhile allies, the Dutch, a truce was agreed. So ended something like half a century of war at sea as the English had pushed—and surprisingly slowly, considering their reputation in Europe—into Portugal's Asian preserves. The peace did not, as Linhares had hoped, lead to the downfall of the Dutch, who went on to inflict grievous blows on Portugal in east and west alike. Nor did it establish England and Portugal as ‘senores de tudo’.Nevertheless it opened an era of generally amicable relations between the two countries in Asia, and so forms a convenient point from which to survey their previous history, and to indicate what may be learned from English sources as to the condition and affairs of the Estado da India.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , April 1982 , pp. 177 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

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