the Portuguese attained their aim was in the end disastrous to
them. It was followed by, if it did not cause, a rapid
deterioration of the ability with which their affairs were
directed; and when other European traders began to appear in the
field, they were readily welcomed by the princes of India and the
chieftains of the Spice Islands. In the West the Portuguese
settlement in Brazil was a genuine colony, or branch of the
Portuguese nation, because here there existed no earlier civilised
people to be dominated. But both in East and West the activities
of the Portuguese were from the first subjected to an over-rigid
control by the home government. Eager to make the most of a great
opportunity for the national advantage, the rulers of Portugal
allowed no freedom to the enterprise of individuals. The result
was that in Portugal itself, in the East, and in Brazil,
initiative was destroyed, and the brilliant energy which this
gallant little nation had displayed evaporated within a century.
It was finally destroyed when, in 1580, Portugal and her empire
fell under the dominion of Spain, and under all the reactionary
influences of the government of Philip II. By the time this heavy
yoke was shaken off, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the
Portuguese dominion had fallen into decay. To-day nothing of it
remains save 'spheres of influence' on the western and eastern
coasts of Africa, two or three ports on the coast of India, the
Azores, and the island of Magao off the coast of China.

The Spanish dominion in Central and South America was of a
different character. When once they had realised that it was not a
new route to Asia, but a new world, that Columbus had discovered
for them, the Spaniards sought no longer mainly for the riches to
be derived from traffic, but for the precious metals, which they