THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN 7 i\tf-- :- i THE_LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD Essaps in Jmpenal HMstors WALTER FREWEN LORD 5IONS OF EmJLAND ' AUTHOR OF ' THE LOST POSSESSIONS LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON ^publishers in (Drbinarg to ^)cr ^ajcstg the 1897 \Allrigftti rescrveif] CONTENTS I. PAGE INTRODUCTORY - I II. THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL - 27 III. THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN - 95 IV. THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE - 171 V. THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND - - 287 VI. CONCLUSIONS - 331 I. INTRODUCTORY. [3] I. INTRODUCTORY. THE world is continually bein g reminded that in the arts of empire the English are mere plagiarists, stupid plagiarists who have spoilt what they have stolen. They have not, so it is affirmed, one single original or admirable quality. They were not great discoverers like the Portuguese, or a great Christianizing power like the Spaniards. They have not the art of conciliating natives like the French, nor even of making them- selves beloved by their own colonists. They have not even the wits to make their empire pay like the Dutch. They roll up, every- where, mountains of debt ; they extort only that they may squander. The single quality that they possess in an abundant degree is 4 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD neither rare nor original. Heavy blood- suckers, they bestride the earth with their so-called empire like a nightmare ; the world would be a sweeter place to live in without them ; the amount of damage they have wrought is as wide as the realm that they have filched from their betters with so much violence and fraud. These pleasantries, oft repeated, have grown to have the weight of arguments ; and, indeed, they form a very ingenious substitute for argument. For, if one would answer them, it can only be done at the ex- pense of much time and labour. Either one must travel and see for one's self whether or no the British Empire deserves this heavy indictment, or one must expend much time in research at home, in order to judge whether our predecessors and contempo- raries merit such unqualified eulogium. Both courses take time to pursue with any measure of thoroughness, and travelling is not only a long task, but a very expensive one. Yet there are many English-speaking folk who are genuinely unable to give in their adhesion INTRODUCTORY to the imperial idea, because their thoughts are so constantly disturbed by reflections like these ; and perhaps by even harsher comments, to all of which they can get no reply, except one that varies from the ' retort courteous' to the 'lie direct.' Neither the ' retort courteous ' nor the ' lie direct ' affords comfort to a troubled con- science ; it must have facts. It is not a matter of very great difficulty to get at the facts ; the requisite research, if wide, is not profound, and can be compassed by any man with a year's leisure at his disposal. But the number of men so fortunately placed is small, and most men with a year's leisure at their disposal prefer to spend it otherwise than in confuting, with so much labour, a trouble- some political antagonist. Such men, we reflect, can always be voted down, British fashion, when the time comes ; and in the meantime we may rest contented to differ from them. But the man with a troubled conscience is not to be so put off; he is usually a man without great means or leisure, but before he 6 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD votes he will know whether he is justified in voting. It is with a view to helping him to decide whether or not the British Empire is the thing of darkness that many would have us believe it to be that the present imperfect attempt at history is put forward. Four only of our predecessors in empire have been selected for study Portugal, Spain, France and Holland. It may be well reasoned that there are but four European nations who have preceded us in this work ; for although Genoa and Venice were mighty and wealthy States, they hardly rose to the position of what we understand to-day by an Empire. They were, rather, highly successful and sumptuous trading corporations. Their in- difference to their neighbours was proverbial ; and it was chiefly in consequence of her long- pursued policy of selfish isolation that Venice, when she fell, fell without a regret, and that her fall so little disturbed the polity of Europe, in spite of the fact that she had so long occu- pied a conspicuous, and sometimes a com- manding position. Extension of territory was not much sought by these wealthy INTRODUCTORY Republics ; and it is precisely extension of territory extraordinary extension of territory that is the great feature of all modern empires. Beyond the great days of Genoa and Venice we come to the Middle Ages, linked by the holy Roman Empire to the ancient world ; none of which epochs have any lesson for the England of to-day. The great extension of British territory that is known as the British Empire has, of course, largely been achieved at the expense of her predecessors ; so that we shall have to consider whether the authority to which we have succeeded was more nobly exercised than our own, and also whether we displaced our predecessors in a manner so reprehensible that no conscientious man can honestly desire to see our empire endure any longer. Sup- posing the verdict of history to be, on the whole, in favour of England, we shall then consider what lessons we may draw from the efforts of our predecessors ; and how far a contemplation of their successes and failures may help us to consolidate our own power. The first European Empire of the modern 8 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD world in point of time was that of Portugal : it is also the most interesting. It was, almost exclusively, the handiwork of the Portuguese monarchs : in fact, we may say that the history of Portugal is the history of its kings. They were very wise kings, and the world was better for their work. There came a time, however, in the history of the royal stock, when the statesman merged in the fanatic. The change coincided with a critical period in the history of the empire, and proved to be an additional and most dangerous source of weakness. The collapse of Portugal followed with extraordinary rapidity, and she has never recovered her old position. Her former empire included what is now the Republic of Brazil and the Dutch East Indies ; but what remains is still large enough to be called a Colonial Empire, and the question whether it is good for the world that that empire should grow and prosper must be answered in the affirma- tive. With the exception of their religious fanaticism (and one must admit that that is INTRODUCTORY a large exception) the Portuguese Empire was a clear gain to the world. It would be most desirable, in the interests of humanity, that the Portuguese should successfully develop their empire. There is not much room for further expansion either in India or Africa ; but there is abundant room for development. On whatever lines that de- velopment took place, it would result in a realm of a very different type from any other now struggling to life in Africa ; and that would be highly advantageous. Variety of excellence is more and more needed every day as the world is gradually overrun by mankind. A revived Portuguese Empire is only a possible event if the Portuguese can make up their minds to follow their King. That is the plain lesson of history. As for sup- posing that there is any particular virtue in, for example, a republican form of govern- ment, that endows it with greater expansive force than it can hope to acquire while trammelled with the form of a monarchy, that is a mere figment of the historical theorist. Nor, seeing how serious are the troubles that follow a change of government, is it any longer honest to urge the experi- ment. The plain truth is, that what we call representative government suits England to perfection ; and in a modified degree it suits some countries that are akin to us in blood. But it is startling to see how easily the machinery is thrown out of gear ; and in Latin countries it has proved only a very moderate success. The East abhors it ; and when we come to a Latin country in no small degree orientalized by infusions of Eastern blood, we are not surprised to find that it is practically a failure. These are general reflections, and in the particular example of Portugal, history shows us that the country has really no chance of future greatness except from trusting itself to a leader. Fate has been kind to the country and has given her a King, who, in all human probability, ought to reign for another fifty years ; if Portugal is to be mighty again, he must rule as well as reign. That is the simple issue before the Portuguese INTRODUCTORY people. If they are contented with things as they are, it is well ; but if they would have an empire, it is their King, and their King only, who can make it for them. The extent of territory that was once Portuguese and is now English is very small. All the Eastern Archipelago went to the Dutch ; but Ceylon was once Portu- guese ; although, inasmuch as it had been Dutch for many generations before we captured it, there is no reason to count it as a Portuguese colony lost to England. Goa, Diu and Daman we, might have had over and over again had we chosen. They still remain Portuguese, and it is to be hoped that they will grow in wealth and strength. Why they are not English will be variously explained. Some will venture to assert that it is from the courtesy of the strong towards a temporarily enfeebled neighbour. Others will say that it is from obedience to some dark and cruel policy, the full iniquity of which has not yet been disclosed. As regards our future relations, there is no reason why they should not be friendly, and 2 12 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD even intimately friendly. Portugal has no grudges against England ; England has no reason to be otherwise than sincerely glad at any change for the better in the outlook for Portugal. We are old allies by policy, and old connections by blood. What is often quoted as a drawback to the advance of Portugal, the infusion of foreign blood, is surely considering the climates and the countries where her work must be carried on an advantage ; and no inconsiderable one. Whether Portugal will seize her opportunity is one of the most interesting problems of the day. If Portugal has no reason to owe England a grudge, Spain has even some reason to exult over her. For if we have taken nothing from Portugal, we made two grand conquests, not to mention Gibraltar, from Spain Cuba and the Philippines and were compelled to restore them both under circumstances that must always be a source of pride to Spain rather than of discomfiture. There is, therefore, no reason why, in the future, we should not be as friendly with INTRODUCTORY 13 Spain as with Portugal ; our present interests do not clash, and there are no grounds for bitter feeling arising from past history. Before we quit this part of our subject, we must recall for a moment the Peninsular War. Surely, if ever one nation laid another under an obligation, England was, at the commencement of the century, in that position towards Spain and Portugal. We now come to the question whether the Empire of Spain was a blessing or a curse to the world. It required for its foundation the mutilation of two great peoples, and the total obliteration of two highly interesting civiliza- tions. This is an unpromising beginning ; but it is usually excused on the ground that Spain converted her American subjects to Christianity. This, certainly, is an excuse that no Christian will undervalue. It de- mands a closer study of the history of the conquest ; and, unfortunately, the more closely we examine it, the more deplorable it looks. Whether is the better, we ask ourselves, to be a pagan like the Inca, or to be a lamentable wretch of a Christian like 2 2 14 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD Pizarro ? These mountains of corpses, these rivers of gore, are they, in very truth, fitting witnesses of the faith in whose name the mass is daily lifted heavenward, and the calvary stands by the roadside ? On the less debatable ground of political advantage we may perhaps find the justifi- cation of the conquest. Unfortunately the case is even clearer. Spanish South America is a by-word in modern times for disorder ; and the nightmare of Spanish dominion lasted for three hundred years. If we inquire why it fell, the answer is, that it is a marvel that it endured as long as it did ; for there really was no reason why it should stand. It had no cohesive force, and no principle of life. It was held together by sheer terror, by the menace of a relentless despotism acting from a vast distance over seas. We must admit that the work of the conquest was done thoroughly : the terror- izing was complete. For Spain was in complete decadence for fully a century and a half before her dependencies dreamed of throwing off their allegiance ; so fearful had INTRODUCTORY been the lessons of the conquest. It appears, however, to be impossible to extirpate a breed of the force of the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians. After two generations of disorder, some- thing like settled government is now return- ing to South and Central America ; the inspiration of which (in so far as can be seen with any degree of clearness through such a tangle) is chiefly Indian. But, however that may be, it seems abundantly clear that from the date of the conquest down to the revolt of the Spanish Colonies, there was no pro- gress whatever made on the South American Continent ; so that the net result of the Spanish Empire was to retard a continent for three centuries. As a set-off, the conti- nent is, nominally at least, and perhaps more than nominally, Christian. If that be all in all, the claim of Spain as a civilizing power must rank very high ; if there be any other duties that a nation has, then Spain must be confessed to have failed in all of them. In effect, Spain was an Asiatic power of the old conquering, exterminating type. In t6 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD all essential features of conduct there is nothing whatever to distinguish the Con- quistadores from those numerous chieftains of Central Asia who have, throughout long centuries, gone forth from their highlands and steppes conquering and to conquer. Through seas of blood they waded to the domination of the gentler races of the South. Tartars and Seljuks and Moguls and Turks and Afghans have all founded, and in the ages to come, perhaps, many other races may found again, empires of the Spanish type. It is idle to assert that Spain should be marked off from these peoples by reason of her religion. Granted that the Spanish is religious, so is the Turk, deeply, fanatically religious. His revelation is different, but his spirit is the same. It is a far cry from Baghdad to Lima, quite as far as from London to Calcutta ; nevertheless, that is the track by which the East invaded the West, and even the Far West. The spirit of the Orient, sweeping along the north of Africa, desolating the churches on its way, crossed the narrow INTRODUCTORY 17 straits and entered Spain. After a conflict of many centuries, it was apparently expelled ; but far from being thrust back into Africa, it had entered into the very soul of the Spaniard. Crossing the Atlantic, though by now it had changed its name and called itself Christian, it fell on the fair pagan dominions of America, as of old it had fallen on Persia and Meso- potamia, and repeated in Mexico the abomi- nations of Tamerlane on the Tigris. This is the grand invasion of the West by the East ; just as the British Empire is the grand invasion of the East by the West. This is the broad distinction between Portugal and England on the one hand, and Spain on the other. Portugal (though sadly shorn of her glory) and England (still in the full tide of success) are of the West ; Spain is of the East. We now come to the lost Empire of France, which, in its potentialities, actually makes up the greater part of the British Empire ; and we must not suppose that France will ever forgive us for having taken it away. There is, however, this reservation 1 8 LOST EMPIRES OF THE-MODERN WORLD to be made, that the Colonial Empire of France was not a great national movement, so perhaps the resentment against England for its loss will not be either national or enduring ; but that is rather a hope than a conviction. Still there remains the fact that in the past, as in the present, it is to the intelligence and the imagination of a few highly-placed men that France owed and owes her Colonial Empire ; not to the eager rush of her sons to the uttermost parts of the earth. The sense of grandeur was perhaps, to a certain extent, national ; but the loss and disappointment certainly were not. The question of the capacity of France for colonizing is one of the extremest complexity. It seems hardly conceivable that a nation capable of so many and varied achievements should really be unable to colonize ; and yet something like that conclusion is forced upon us by history. By slow degrees, and with infinite nursing, the French did indeed found one considerable colony of their own blood on the Saint Lawrence. All their other INTRODUCTORY 19 settlements outside France seem to have a certain flavour of artificiality. Even Canada is not a settlement of such freshness or distinctiveness as to make us feel that the world has suffered a loss in the check that French colonization received from England. When we come to empires founded on the domination of other races, the case is even stronger. In days gone by, the French were con- spicuous for the affection that they inspired in native races. It was the great distinction that marked them off from the English. The position appears to be reversed to-day. None the less is France determined to persevere. Like England, she has lost one empire only to found another. England lost her American Colonies ; but Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa, and immense extensions in India, have far more than made up for that great loss. France lost Canada and the nascent Empire of India; she has, since the commencement of this century, acquired an immense territory in South Eastern Asia, another in Northern 20 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD Africa, another (which she hopes to unite to the first) in Western Africa, and quite recently the most important island of Mada- gascar. This is surely a mark of the most exuberant vitality. But it is even more astounding when we reflect that she is at the same time facing the greatest naval power on sea and the greatest military power on land ; while bearing the burden of a national debt twice the size of that of England. France has so often astonished the world that she may well do so again. But to face England and the Continent together proved to be too much for her in the days of Louis the Great, and too much for her again in the days of Napoleon the Great. To that task she has added to-day the burden of an immense empire over-seas. There are set- offs, assuredly ; but the task is Titanic, nevertheless. The work of England is comparatively light. If it be to the world's advantage that each nation should attain to its highest point of development, thus presenting to all other INTR OD UCTOR Y 2 1 peoples the stimulating spectacle of great varieties of excellence, it is much to be regretted that so much of the former colonial Empire of France should have merged in that of England. The world would appear to have lost much in not possessing some realm outside France where Frenchmen have stamped the genius of their country on a new soil, and under new conditions. But the idea of the loss is quite illusory ; for, as a matter of history, France has never put her soul into her colonial enterprises, nor is she doing so to-day. Frenchmen are far too happy and contented in their own enchanting country to travel far afield. The grave and absorbing work of empire-making is irksome to a people so home-loving and affectionate. So, while the voice of ambition fitfully urges Frenchmen on to settle abroad, the voice of France is ever calling them home. Although we can hardly expect French- men to admit it, that kind of empire that most attracts them the exercise of dominion over native kings and races is what they 22 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD appear to be even less suited for than colonizing by settlement. Egypt is the most complete demonstration of this position. The work was done, with the exception of the last touch. True, a minister hung back ; but what of that ? English ministers are always hanging back. It is not by one, or by a hundred incapable ministers and England has had quite that number in her time that a race is to be kept back that has empire in its blood. So, though we may trace the loss of the French -Indian Empire to this source or the other, the teaching of history is very plain, that even if it had been safely founded, it could not have endured for long ; and the probability is that it would eventually have become English in spite of the delay of a century, or perhaps a little more. We now come to the last of our great predecessors Holland, and we must draw a great distinction between the Dutchman at home and the Dutchman abroad, between Hollanders founding their independence and Hollanders founding their empire. The INTRODUCTORY 23 revolt of Holland against Spain is almost, if not quite, the noblest episode of modern history. It is largely to Holland that we of the North owe it that for three hundred years the desolating breath of Spanish tyranny has not come nigh our shores. The Dutchman's protest in favour of civil and religious liberty is immortal, and until, as may duly happen in the course of centuries, the present stage of the world's civilization comes to its close, Holland must hold the first place among the liberators of the world. It is the more strange that a nation of such exalted patriotism, such warmth of religious feeling, and such a keen sense of justice, should display so little nobility when she enters on her grand period. It was not that Holland was bloodthirsty ; far, very far indeed, was Holland from that offence. It was simply that Holland ' sweated,' in the modern phrase, her depen- dencies. She set to work as if saying, ' Hollanders have had a hard life at home ; they shall have an easy life now.' Her religious feelings do not seem to have re- 24 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD strained her from exploiting her Eastern subjects to the fullest possible extent. Rather, they seem to have stimulated her in carrying on her oppressions. The fierce old Hebrew sentiment ' The Lord hath delivered them into our hands ' exactly describes her attitude. She ' worked them for all they were worth.' Without employing this shop-keeping ex- pression it is difficult to exactly describe how entirely the Dutch looked on their vast empire as a commercial enterprise. There was no question of raising the natives in material comfort or intellectual calibre ; their sole reason for existing was that they might make fat fortunes for Dutchmen : so long as they were alive they could contribute to that end, and there was no other end to which they could contribute no other end, at any rate, that a Dutchman cared to recognize. The rebellion against Spain was the Dutchman's work ; the founding of the empire was his pleasure ; the Dutchman was grim in his pleasure. Holland, the noble little country, is, and must be for ever, a beacon to all who seek light for INTRODUCTORY 25 noble aim and noble endeavour ; but the Dutch Empire, whatever it may be now, was an abominable exhibition of selfishness. So, to return to the considerations with which this chapter commenced, the con- scientious hesitator may surely take comfort from the contemplation of the lost empires that have preceded our own. The empire most like our own was that of Portugal ; its downfall is to be deplored, and its revival hoped for. That of Spain was simply Asiatic, a mighty offshoot of the Orient, stretching out even across the Atlantic. It has fallen, as all Oriental empires fall, never to rise again. Other States may build on its ruins, but when once the flame has burnt out, there is no rekindling the ashes. Both these two were national enterprises, the one breathing the West, the other the East. But the lost empire of France was not a national enterprise ; nor is the modern empire of France. Both, though mighty in extent, were of comparatively feeble vitality. They certainly were not of any damage to the cause of progress, but they, 26 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD equally certainly, have not much inspiring force, being but artificial creations themselves. The empire of Holland, though called an empire, was simply an immense commercial enterprise. It was conducted on the strictest, and even the sharpest, business principles. The vast enrichment of Hollanders is, no doubt, an agreeable result for Holland, but the process is not interesting or elevating to onlookers, and the means by which it was attained are generally condemned by all conscientious hesitators, being precisely those which England is most constantly and unfairly accused of employing. Assuredly the British Empire is not perfect nobody but a ' Jingo ' would pretend that it was. But its existence is, on the whole, an advantage to the world, and it is far in advance of any of its predecessors, from whatever point of view we consider it. If it has benefited or enriched Englishmen, it has also benefited and enriched the men of other nations, and if it is ever to close its doors to them it will only be under foreign compulsion that it will do so. II. THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL. [2 9 ] II. THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL. M. DE CHAMFORT relates that when the English Ambassador at Lisbon was asked what was the difference between a Spaniard and a Portuguese, he replied, 4 If you take away all a Spaniard's good qualities, what is left is a Portuguese.' M. de Chamfort was a professional collector of good stories ; and, of course, it was not to be expected that he should give up such a good illustration of British insolence from o any pedantic scruples as to whether it was likely to be true or not. So he duly en- shrined it in his collection : and the fable has no doubt contributed not a little towards the unfavourable view of the English char- acter that prevails on the Continent. 32 30 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD But if the anecdote is a fable as it almost certainly must be the question is pertinent ; and if the fable could ever have been nar- rated with anything approaching a semblance of truth, it was during the eighteenth century, the period to which Chamfort ascribes it, and at which date the Portuguese Monarchy touched its lowest point of feebleness. But the Portuguese Monarchy is a good deal older than the eighteenth century, and has a history of such not merely comparative, but absolute, grandeur and heroism that a mere moment of degradation such as a generation or so of time in a life centuries long may be made the occasion of a feeble joke, but cannot be made anything else if we are attempting to estimate a nation's qualities. The men of our generation have no good reason to speak with respect of Portugal, unless they are members of the very small class of historical students. This is a com- mercial age : and Portugal has no claims to consideration on account of her commercial achievements, for she is chronically bankrupt. THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 31 Fighting has been always in fashion, but Portugal has done no fighting since the Peninsular War, where she certainly dis- tinguished herself highly ; but the over- shadowing greatness of the Duke of Wel- lington has made us forget her achievements, although the Duke himself always did justice to them. This is an age in which every country prides itself on its internal adminis- tration and the security afforded to travellers, and Portugal, unfortunately, is not remarkable for either. There is no surer sign of a country's real grandeur than a quick eye for great char- acters. In days gone by Portugal was con- spicuous among the nations for knowing a great man when she saw one. It was not only that she did honour to her own great men (of whom she had a plentiful crop) ; not content with them, she welcomed with open arms the eager spirits of other nations who came to cast in their lot with hers. No nation can long remain in this state of noble enthusiasm, so we need not inquire why Portugal no longer attracts and retains 32 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD the services of accomplished foreigners. Such wide sympathies so widely indulged in make rare moments of grandeur in a nation's history. But where are the great men of Portugal's own breeding to-day the soldiers, above all, the colonial administrators ? Such men there still must be in that land of heroic memories, and one very great man, at least, we know that there is. Inasmuch as in Portugal the destiny of the throne and the destiny of the people are one, we must, even at the risk of impertinence, recall the history of the years 1889 to 1897. The spirit of Henry the Navigator and John the Perfect is still there to guide the Portuguese if they have not yet quite lost their old infallible instinct for great men. Never had Portugal greater need of that instinct ; let her look overseas. The Empire of Brazil has fallen ; and the miserable Government that succeeded it has become a mere derelict, dangerous to O others, incapable of directing itself. As to ' golden Goa,' let anyone who has sailed from Bombay down the western coast of India THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 33 remember what ' golden Goa ' was like or even Panjim and he will need a stronger dose of historic imagination than most men possess to enable him to realize that Portugal was once mighty and may yet be mighty again. Of all the lost empires, that of Portugal is the most interesting, and the most fruitful in lessons to existing empires. And this not only because it was romantic to an un- paralleled degree, but because in the con- ditions of its rise and its prosperity it more exactly resembles the British Empire than any other of the lost empires of history ; and Englishmen, who seemingly know so well how to found empires, may, by studying the lost empire of Portugal, learn how best to avoid losing them. It is not much in the Englishman's way to learn from reading he learns from experience mostly ; but we cannot afford to learn from experience how empires are lost, so, if we would know, we must needs learn from history. It seems to be the destiny of small king- doms adjacent to mighty neighbours to be ab- 34 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD sorbed in the territory of the latter. Scotland merged in England, Burgundy in France of late the process has gone on with extra- ordinary rapidity, and famous States and Monarchies have been absorbed by the dozen to make up the great empire of Germany, and, as some may think, the essentially greater kingdom of Italy. How comes it that Portugal remains independent of Spain ? Unless as men are only too apt to do we hastily and superficially conclude that both Spaniard and Portuguese are worthless and worn-out types, and that Portugal is only not absorbed by Spain either because she is not worth absorbing, or because Spain has not the requisite strength or ambition unless we are content with this entirely erroneous view, we shall have to conclude that some con- siderable difference between the two types does exist, and that the Portuguese has a native sturdiness that we have overlooked. This, or something like this, is the view that history leads us to. To appreciate the mighty Portuguese Empire, how it arose, and the forces that could overcrow its vigour, THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 35, and produce its decline, we must perforce trace the Portuguese race to its source. Portugal has no natural boundaries, like the Rhine, the Alps, or the Pyrenees, that seem to mark off certain territories for the habitat of different races. Everything was against the probability of a separate kingdom being carved out of the western portion of the peninsula ; and the distinctive national existence of Portugal, as well as her subse- quent expansion into an empire, is due to two causes : firstly, the vigour and sagacity of her rulers, whether as kings, or, later on, as emperors, in all but the name ; and, secondly, the courage and tenacity of the people. So we come back to the question, What was the Portuguese people ? Without exhausting the subject, we may say that it was an amalgam of a pre-historic tribe and some Celtic invaders, strongly coloured with Roman influence and Latin blood, and overlaid by Visigoth. So far, there is not much to distinguish the Portuguese from the early Briton ; and the reproach if it be a reproach of ' mongrel/ 36 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD which is freely levelled at the Portuguese by undiscerning critics, is perhaps less applicable to this race than to any other of the Aryan races of Europe. In the mouth of an English- man, who is probably the greatest mongrel of Europe, and therefore the most successful of modern types, the epithet is particularly absurd. The difference between the British and the Portuguese type at the end of the fifth century A.D. probably amounted to this : that in Portugal the Roman element was the stronger, whereas in England various other invading strains combined with the native breed to overpower the Roman stock. The influence of the discipline of the Great Republic was equally great on the minds and habits of thought of the two peoples. But in Portugal Rome, in addition, stamped her impress on the language and the laws of the people, so that the Portuguese definitely entered the Latin family of nations while England remained definitely outside. The Phoenician colonies were never more than trading settlements, either in the Scilly Isles or at Carthagena, and, though there are THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 37 more traces of Phoenicia in Portugal than in England, the sum total of Semitic in- fluence was insignificant in either case. When all is said, the Roman was a dull fellow. He was brave, fierce even ; a good soldier and, according to his lights, a good citizen, if a coarse human being. But he lacked fire. In the arts and in literature he could only imitate ; in science he invented nothing ; commerce he despised. He was supreme in the one intellectual pursuit where hard and commonplace minds do mostly triumph the study and practice of law. How comes it, then, that the Portuguese up to the fifth century more Roman than anything else distinguished himself in history by deeds which transcended the flights of the wildest imagination ? Whence came the unrivalled tact with which he founded and governed successfully, and under the most varied conditions, empires in Brazil and the Indies ? What turned Lisbon into the commercial capital of Europe, and produced the lofty literature of Camoens? These are essentially romantic perform- 38 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD ances, and, though we derive our word ' romantic ' from the city on the Tiber, romantic is the last thing in the world that any Roman either was or desired to be. He was of the earth, earthy. The determining strain in the Portuguese race the strain that decided its destiny seems to have come from the desert. The Saracens did not enter Portugal as invaders ; they were invited over the Straits to be the make-weight in a domestic quarrel. But, once there, they founded kingdoms. They were not ardent proselytizers, and they took the greater hold of the country in con- sequence. There were numerous converts from Christianity to Islam, just as, later on, the process was reversed. But it must be confessed that the conversions to Islam have more the external appearance of willing con- versions than those from Islam to Christianity. There were many of both kinds, throughout centuries. The Saracens made good and capable rulers ; they brought a high, if some- what exotic, civilization with them ; they were tolerant and sumptuous. Portugal THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 39 prospered under them, and the national char- acter took a deep tinge of Saracenic culture and ideas, not only from the natural impulse to imitate and admire their rulers, but from the influence, at once more direct, more subtle, and more lasting, of constant intermarriage in all ranks of life. Extreme precocity, both intellectual and physical, is the great feature of contrast between East and West. When the star of the East is in the ascendant, the results of this precocity seem almost miraculous to the Western mind. The great Mussulman kingdom of Southern India was founded by a slave in an oasis, rose to a height of glory whose mere remains are the wonder and delight of travellers, decayed and fell into ruins all within the period between Richard III. and James II. The Saracen dominion in Africa and Spain took somewhat longer to found and develop, and its decline was more gradual ; perhaps for these reasons its influence persisted longer. When the grasp of the Caliphate was re- 40 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD laxed, the Emirs of Portugal proclaimed themselves independent, and became, in their castles, in no way different, except in religion, from the Christian chiefs in their castles. Except in religion there lay all the difference. That was an age of religious wars, and it was not to be expected that Moslem noble and Christian noble would settle down side by side, content with no more and no greater excitement than an occasional raid on each other's territory afforded. Had they been so easily satisfied, the civilization of Portugal would have de- veloped on all fours with the civilization of Northern Italy the Italy of the Montagus and Capulets, of Sforzas and Viscontis it might have been as great, but it would have been no greater. But Europe was aflame with religious, or pseudo-religious, zeal ; and the chieftains of Portugal were soon arrayed, not, as every- where else, each man against his neigh- bour, but Christian against Moslem. It was an age of knight-errantry. From all over Northern Europe came knight adventurers, THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 41 with their trains of followers, great and small, to aid in the Holy War ; and when the struggle was over, and the Portuguese people, burnt and hammered into unity, stood before the world as a nation, a new and valuable stock of Northern blood had found its way into the national amalgam. The ultimate fate of Islam is made the subject of many facile speculations. It is customary to speak of the faith as ' decadent.' It is true that since the Turks were driven from the gates of Vienna the boundaries of Mussulman kingdoms have everywhere re- ceded. Turkey in Europe has dwindled to one-sixth of her size at the commencement of this century. Her former fiefs along the southern shore of the Mediterranean have mostly fallen under Christian domination. Persia has grievously dwindled in power and population. All this no doubt represents a period of serious retrogression that has already endured for two centuries. And as faith and conquest are closely allied in the creed of Islam, the waning of faith is followed by a more plain 42 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD diminution of temporal authority than would attend a similar lukewarmness among Chris- tians. Probably the present languor of Islam is not greater than the languor of Christi- anity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and against this languor we have to set two great facts. The first is the rapid and steady progress made by Islam in Central and Western Africa, where Mussul- man missionaries are yearly gaining over whole tribes of excellent fighting material to the creed of Mahomet. The second is the Mahdist revolt in Eastern Africa. By the efforts of England this revolt has now been rounded off into an episode. But the rise of the Mahdi was exactly one of those volcanic movements which have before now changed the face of continents, and may do so again. Undoubtedly, if it had not been for England, the Mahdi would have overrun Egypt, Turkey in Asia, and even if he had been turned back from Constantinople his government might have had an indefinite expansion into Central Asia. It was from -one of these outbursts of heroic endeavour, THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 43 and the answering exaltation called forth from Christendom, that the kingdom of Portugal was born. When William of Normandy was parcel- ling England among his knights, the Por- tuguese tribes, a sturdy remnant, were struggling for dear life against the Moslem, and bravely holding their own in the northern provinces of what we now call Portugal. Their feeble ones had long since been weeded out by war, and much of their country depopulated. Those that remained were hardy, simple folk, pious without bigotry, excellent husbandmen, excellent men of the chase, excellent warriors. Besides this assemblage of native virtues, they had drawn from the blood of their enemies the seeds of an adventurous and romantic temper. All that they needed to mould them into a mighty nation was a leader. He came to them from Northern Europe : Henry, a Burgundian Crusader, married to a daughter of their over-lord of Gallicia, by whom he had a son, Affonso. These were the first leaders of the Portu- 4 44 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD guese, the moulders of their character on national lines, the founders of their monarchy. Count Henry brought the daring, restless spirit of the Crusader ; his wife brought personal charm and administrative ability ; their son united their good qualities, and founded the royal line of Portugal. It is no part of our subject ' The Lost Empire of Portugal ' to trace the further history of the little State, for little in extent of European territory it always remained. But, accustomed as we are to see in the Portugal of to-day a feeble and unsuccessful people, and in their possessions overseas unimportant posts, and territories hard to keep and hardly worth the keeping, we almost involuntarily ascribe to the Portugal of other days the same or similar character- istics. We are tempted to think that if Portugal ever conquered it must have been because their enemies were even feebler folk than themselves. In short, we do not realize the Portuguese Empire. The first step to that desirable end is to realize the Portuguese character as it was before it embarked on its THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 45 great enterprises, and to understand that when the great age of Portugal began it found a nation numerically small, but morally and intellectually the first of its age, and governed by a dynasty that produced fewer incapable monarchs than any other seated on the thrones of Europe. Portugal, naturally enough, did not im- mediately expand into an empire. Two problems had to be solved at home first. One was to make the kingdom of Castile recognize that she could not have the whole peninsula to herself ; the other was to con- quer the Algarves from the Moors. Both problems had to be solved by force of arms, and took three centuries to settle. The beginning of the fifteenth century found England and Portugal t in close alliance. King John, the first ruler of the house of A viz, had married a daughter of John of Gaunt. Naturally, his sympathies were Lancastrian, and Henry IV., in return for his prompt recognition by Portugal as King of England, had made King John a Knight of the Garter. It is agreeable and interesting 42 46 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD to historic students to remember that King Carlos of Portugal recently received the Garter from his cousin, the Queen of Eng- land. These are not trifles ; or, if there be any so dour-minded as to maintain that the orders of knighthood are trifles, any student of history will admit that they often furnish him with valuable clues. One or other of the orders has always had a certain pre-eminence, so that to hold it is the natural incident to the sovereignty of a great State, or a mark of the highest personal distinction. At one time one would have inquired, Has he the Golden Fleece ? at another, Has he the order of the Holy Ghost ? at another, Has he the Garter ? John the First was proud of his Blue Ribbon. Definitely recognized, although a bastard, as one of the great European sovereigns, ruler of a compact nation, and himself a man of great abilities, even King John could have had no idea of the glory that awaited his dynasty and his nation in the course of the next century and a half. THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 47 John was proud of his English alliance, and named his eldest son Edward, after Edward III. of England. All his sons were brave and enterprising. Their model and idol was their cousin Henry, the victor of Agincourt. They were five most remarkable princes : four were men of action, one Henry a man of thought. The eldest, Edward, pondered much over his duties as king, and was, perhaps, led astray by his desire to increase his own authority when he succeeded to the crown. Two of the others. Peter and Ferdinand, were knights-errant of the Crusading type, and their energies produced two great events : one a triumph, the capture of Ceuta ; the other a disaster, the miserable attack on Tangier. But success and failure alike stimulated the longing of the daring Portu- guese for enterprise abroad, and fed the enthusiasm on which Henry, the greatest of them all, calculated. Henry the Thinker he should have been called. He is known as Henry the Navi- gator, although he never made a sea voyage. 48 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD In him the practical temper that he inherited from his English mother was informed by the resolute profundity which is characteristic of southern types at their best. He saw, no less than his father and his brothers, what a mighty engine the Portuguese nation had become. But he saw, what they did not see, that the energies of Portugal would be far more usefully employed in exploration and discovery than in romantic endeavours to ex- terminate Islam or to conquer Spain. Both of these were hopelessly impossible tasks and useless tasks. And yet, unless some other outlet were found for the energy of Portugal, it would most indubitably be turned to one or both of these tasks, and that at once. He wasted no time on words. He lost no time in pleasure or travel. He might have loitered away his time agreeably enough, for he would have been welcomed and feted magnificently at all the courts of Europe, not only for his father's sake, but for his own. Instead, he settled down at Sagres, by Cape St. Vincent, the southernmost point of THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 49 Portugal, where he could daily look out on the sea that led to India. His local influence was unbounded, for he was Governor of the Algarves. Like his father and brothers, he was a Knight of the Garter. His appoint- ment to the Algarves dated from 1419, and for forty-one years after that date, until his death in 1460, he never ceased to direct the expeditions that were fitted out under his orders for the discovery of the route to India. Forty years seems a long time, and when we consider that he died forty years before the route was discovered, we are at some loss whether to marvel most at the Prince's pertinacity or the sailors' courage. Without charts, without soundings, ignorant alike of the climate and of the ocean-currents with which they would have to deal, they put forth in open or half-decked boats into the Unknown. On their return they visited their Prince, and told him what they had done. All were welcomed and rewarded. If a man got no further than his predecessors, his voyage at any rate confirmed, perhaps corrected, the 50 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD experience of others. Any new facts were eagerly noted ; discoveries might even be made, and perhaps earned for the daring navigator the honour of knighthood from Prince Henry's own hands an honour coveted by all Europe. At home the Prince planned and watched, drew up charts, studied every possible im- provement in boat-building or compass, inter- viewed travellers, sought out daring sailors, guided, comforted, controlled. Many men thought him a dreamer, some even a danger- ous dreamer. His own family, however, were all-powerful, and if they did not support him very eagerly, at any rate they took an interest in his pursuits. If they could not be entirely weaned from their dreams of conquering Spain and Morocco, they, at any rate, allowed the Prince to have his own way, and gradually results were forthcoming. Years passed by, and the steadfast Prince continued collecting facts and travellers' tales, and sending out new so-called ' expedi- tions,' which only meant a handful of reso- lute men in a boat about the size of a first- THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 51 "class Deal lugger, and nothing like so seaworthy. So much of Africa was opened up in this way that the route to India, from being a personal hobby, grew to a provincial and then to a national enterprise. The first point that Prince Henry aimed at was the discovery of a sea route to Senegambia, to cut out the caravans that proceeded thither from Tunis. This does not seem a very considerable achievement, for Cape St. Vincent is in N. Lat. 36 r , and Cape Verde is in N. Lat. 12, but twenty-six years passed before Nuno Tristam passed the Senegal. At first the grand object of all the sailors employed by Prince Henry was to round Cape Bojador, and fifteen years must pass before even this modest addition could be made to the geography of Western Africa. But they began well, for in the year after Prince Henry was appointed Governor of the Algarves, his men made the important discovery of the island of Madeira. Then came nothing but disappointment after dis- appointment. The most that his men could $2 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD do was to reach one or another of the Canary Islands, and Cape Bojador still remained a forbidding, almost a legendary, promon- tory. At last, in 1434, it was re-discovered and doubled. The next year they sailed 150 miles further; in 1436 210 miles further still, landed, and (for the first time) cast anchor, and essayed to gain the interior and find the trade routes ; but that had to be given up after some skirmishing with the natives. So far, the Prince's work had gone on with very little interruption, but about this time the Tangier expedition was planned. Prince Henry made no remon- strances, or very few. In truth, achieve- ments in his own line of exploration had hitherto been but unimportant. For seven- teen years of work and thought he had nothing to show that would dazzle or con- vince the world. The first captains whom he had sent to sea were already grizzled veterans, if they were not dead, and the sea route to India was still a dream, a hobby of his Highness's, and not to be compared with THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 53 the excitement of a campaign in Morocco. But, as soon as the war-fever had been stilled by copious blood-letting, and the Portuguese, appalled at the fearful disaster, were mourning the loss of their beloved Prince Ferdinand, left a captive with the Moors, the steadfast Prince Henry resumed his labours, and in 1441 Tristam made the important discovery of Cape Blanco. Two years later Nuno Tristam sailed twenty-five miles further south. In 1445 the Prince resolved on a bold stroke. He entrusted a larger expedition than usual to Gonsalo de Cintra, with orders to proceed straight to Guinea without putting in. The expedition was a complete failure ; but another, under Nuno Tristam, succeeded in the comparatively humble attempt to pass the Senegal. The next year Diniz Diaz, greatly daring, never struck sail till he had passed the Senegal. When he landed he found that the native type had changed ; they were no longer the Moors that he and his were accustomed to fight and trade with. o He had made a great discovery, for he had 54 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD entered the land of the negroes. He dis- covered Cape Verde. There was, by this time, a keen rivalry among all the captains of Portugal for who should get furthest and deserve best of his Prince. In the same year that Diaz rounded Cape Verde, Nuno Tristam closed his last voyage with a brilliant triumph, for he got 300 miles further than Diaz, but was killed by a poisoned arrow while attempting to ascend the Rio Grande. In 1446, too, Alvaro Fernandes outdid even Nuno Tristam, for he nearly reached Sierra Leone. This was the best year of Prince Henry's life. By this date over fifty vessels had been on voyages of exploration more or less im- portant. Nearly a thousand natives from different parts of the coast had been brought back to Portugal. The nation was agog with excitement and curiosity ; the ocean had no more terrors for them. The im- possible had already been overcome, the realm of dreams lay open to them ; the great Prince's work was done. He had paved the way for the Portuguese Empire. He had THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 55 given the people a new ambition. To be adventurers, navigators, explorers ; to open, enjoy, and revel in the new worlds before them this was the ambition of the Portuguese. What was the ambition of the Englishman or the Italian at the same period ? In 1460 Prince Henry died ; but Portugal was now launched on the road to Empire. His work is well estimated by the royal order of 1469 granting privileges to Guinea traders ; and in which it was made a principal condition to the enjoyment of these privileges that one hundred leagues of the coast of Africa should be opened up every year. Exploration was recognized by the highest authority in the land as the manifest duty and prerogative of the Portuguese. Could any such order have emanated from the Sovereign in the year when, after the Ceuta expedition, Prince Henry was ap- pointed Governor of the Algarves ? It is not to be supposed that the Portuguese could only grasp one idea at a time ; or that they succeeded merely by 56 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD dogged perseverance in one line of discovery. A very versatile race was the Portuguese. Their minds took new impressions quickly ; their energy was almost inexhaustible, and it was readily turned in a new direction when old directions were clearly no longer profit- able. Fortunately, the men at the helm of the State were wise princes. Prince Henry the Thinker was now indeed dead, but his spirit lived. The direction of the work of exploration remained in the hands of the royal family, and in 1486 John the Perfect sat on the throne of Portugal. It was evident to him that although India might eventually be reached round the south of Africa it would take a very long time to discover the route. Certainly that line of discovery must be persevered in ; but it would be better to start other lines as well. For a good many years past there had been a revival of those early rumours con- cerning the land of Prester John, which, by all accounts was worth discovering. It was now placed by common consent in Abyssinia, THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 57 and two expeditions were fitted out in 1486 with the object of getting there. The first, with daring originality, was ordered to sail up the Senegal to its source, evidently with the idea that the source of the Senegal would prove to be near enough to the boundaries of Abyssinia for the expedition to make its way on. The King's notion of direction was correct enough ; but in point of distance he was out about 3,000 miles ; so that this expedition got nothing but the honour and glory of being the first explorers of the Senegal. The other expedition, not less daringly conceived, had momentous results. It was directed to sail along the Mediterranean, and then work overland to the Red Sea, and thence to Suakim, where apparently the explorers were to inquire their way. The first expedition failed because the officers composing it, not knowing Arabic, found that it would be useless to proceed further. It was followed by the expedition of Payva and Covilham. They both died in Abyssinia, which country was early reached by Affonso 58 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD da Payva, who kept that one object steadily in view from the outset of their joint expedi- tion. Covilham himself heard rumours on the way that showed him how much more glorious discoveries lay before him if only he could hold out. He reached Aden, where his restless and adventurous mind was finally made up by the news he heard of India. He made an extraordinary voyage, reached Cananore, on the Malabar coast, and saw Calicut and Goa. On the African coast he put in at Sofala. Here he heard about Madagascar (called the Island of the Moon), and also heard enough about the geography of Africa south of Sofala to entitle him to consider himself as the virtual discoverer of the Cape route. One would think that this was renown enough for an ordinary man, but Covilham was an adventurer of the most exalted type. He made his way back to Cairo, and found Payva's messengers, the survivors of his expedition, without much difficulty. From them he learnt that Payva had died in Abyssinia, and had sent them to Cairo to THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 59 await Covilham, and return to Portugal with him. This was all very well, but Covilham had a mind to see Abyssinia for himself. No doubt if he had been endowed with a more Northern sense of duty, he would have returned at once. Strictly speaking, he ought to have done so, but perhaps he thought that his message would atone for some shortcomings. So he sent back the survivors to Portugal with this message : ' Let the Guinea explorers persevere, let them sail ever South and fear not. When the time came that they must needs follow the land North, let them ask for Sofala and the island of the Moon. Here they shall find news of me ; and as I crossed from India to Sofala, no doubt they will be able to return from Sofala to India.' So the message went home, and Covilham turned back and started for Abyssinia. He never returned to Portugal, but his fate was not an unhappy one. At the capital of the King he was received kindly. It was a Christian country, and he settled there, entered the King's service, and died what 5 60 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD we might call Prime Minister of Abyssinia. It is evident that in Covilham's nature there was (and small blame to him) a deep vein of personal ambition. True, he had dis- obeyed his monarch in that, having dis- covered Abyssinia, he did not return and report his success, but he may have reflected that the discovery of Abyssinia was, after all, a trifling matter beside the discovery of India ; and had he not sent home to his Sovereign such information as was beyond the wildest hopes of any who strove to make the country mighty ? Might he not now with justice profit himself? At any rate, he did so, and ended at the court of Abyssinia a life of wilder romance than an Arabian tale. John the Perfect, in whom the spirit of Henry the Thinker survived in all its force, encouraged foreigners at his court or, rather, it would be more accurate to say, he encouraged talent. What he wanted was ability, and if a man had brains, he need not fear lack of employment because his father had not been a Portuguese. Cadamosto, a Venetian, had done much THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 61 good work for Prince Henry, and at the court of King John (Prince Henry's grand- nephew) there was often to be seen another Italian a Genoese. It seems that he had a new plan for reaching India. King John liked new plans. He had a plan of his own for reaching Cathay by the north of Europe, in pursuance of which Martin Lopes dis- covered Nova Zembla. He had another plan for exploring Africa, in pursuance of which his messengers succeeded in discover- ing Timbuctoo. We have seen how daringly he had schemed to reach Abyssinia by sailing up the Senegal, and by sailing down the Red Sea, and we shall soon see how gloriously his perseverance in despatching expeditions down the coast of Africa was to be rewarded. The Genoese may therefore have well reckoned on a favourable reception of his own plan for discovering India. The King received him very kindly, for the man was known as a daring fellow, who had already made voyages down the Guinea Coast in the Portuguese service. But as the plan 52 62 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD was unfolded, the King became more and more shy of committing himself to it. On the difficulties of ocean-voyaging, and the best way of adapting resources to over- coming them, there was no greater authority living than the King of Portugal. But there were some points about this new plan which the King could see no way to meeting, and as to which the adventurer could offer no opinion except his conviction that the thing could be done. The King made up his mind that the plan was impracticable. Perhaps a certain ex- altation of manner on the part of the Genoese contributed to this unfavourable view, for he was at last told that the King had no time for dreamers, and the man left the Portuguese court to carry his plan else- where. His name was Christopher Colum- bus. So it seems to have been written in the book of Fate that Portugal was not to have all the glory that the world had to offer. But she already had much, and was soon to have more. One Diaz, of a race of sailors and adven- THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 63 turers, was fitted out in 1486 with two ships, fairly large ones as ships went at that time fifty tons apiece and despatched to the Guinea Coast with orders (most sagacious orders !) to put in at the different well-known ports, and land at each one of them some of the natives who had been carried to Portugal from the coast of Africa by earlier expedi- tions. These natives were to tell their own tale of how they had been treated in Portugal, and what the Portuguese nation was like. This most statesmanlike measure would suffice, even if we had no other evidence, to prove that the Portuguese possessed the instinct of Empire. They knew that they could only rule through the confidence felt in them by their subjects, and they began very early in their days of empire to win that confidence. Diaz's stock of ambassa- dors of goodwill was exhausted long before he reached the Orange River. Here his troubles began. He had to face the Un- known, and in his little craft of fifty tons was carried far south beyond the Cape into 64 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD seas growing (to their alarm), not only rougher, but every day colder. At length the wind turned, and he beat north, finally landing in Algoa Bay. He had turned the Cape at last, but he had turned the Cape without seeing it. At Great Fish Bay his crew mutinied, and compelled him to turn back. It was on his return journey that he first saw Table Mountain, christened by him, in memory of his buffeting, the Cape of Storms, but ever since known by the name bestowed on it by his grateful King the Cape of Good Hope. So it could be done. After seventy years of thought and study and trial, seventy years' application of the maxim of the great captain who died four hundred years after him, ' Erst wagen, dann wagen,' Diaz laid open the route to the East. There was now no doubt that the Indies could be reached round the Cape, and ten years later this was achieved. One is so sated with wonders in reading early Portuguese history that the famous voyage of Vasco da Gama seems almost THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 65 commonplace. He left Portugal on July 8, 1497, in command of four vessels, the largest being of 120 tons burden. He circum- navigated Africa, and crossed the Indian Ocean from Melind to Calicut, which place he reached in May, 1498. From Great Fish Bay to Mombasa he was practically exploring for the first time, as Covilham, his predecessor, had left no notes to guide him. He returned to Lisbon at the end of August, 1499. So ends the story of the discovery of the East by Portugal, a story which it has been necessary to trace in some slight detail in order that we might understand what manner of men the Portuguese were. The story of the foundation of their Eastern Empire and of its expansion is remarkable enough, but is almost commonplace beside the story of how the Portuguese got there. We must content ourselves with remembering that to found and govern a great empire the same qualities have been required in all ages. The Portuguese showed that they possessed these qualities in ample measure courage 66 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD and daring in war, skill in administration, uprightness in all things, judicial and fiscal. By ' empire ' one means, of course, a settled State, and not the violent and precarious dominion of a predatory horde ; for the making of which in all ages nothing much is needed beyond recklessness as to your own throat, and greater recklessness as to your neighbour's. It is usually supposed that the Portuguese Empire in the East consisted of. dominions on the western coast of India of which three" fragments remain, Goa, Daman and Diu and of little else. But on their road to India they had founded what promised to be a considerable empire on the east coast of Africa. They were, in fact, dominant over the whole of that coast, and only natural obstacles prevented them from reaching the interior. The tribes with whom they con- tended were savages, and much milder savages than the Zulus or Matabele. Com- pared to the difficulties that awaited the Portuguese in India, the difficulties that con- fronted them in Africa were trivial, with the THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 67 exception of two malarial fever and the tsetse fly. The fever killed the men, and the fly killed the cattle. The Portuguese were continually struggling against these difficulties without realizing how great they were. With our extended knowledge we can see that they were attempting an im- possible task. Had they worked their way up from the Cape, as we are doing now, and from a station inland pushed down to the sea, they would have had some chance of success ; but they do not seem to have thought of such a course ; and had they done so they would have been too few to have pursued it profitably. So the Portuguese Empire in Africa remained unimportant, except as a post on the road to India, and was probably at no period of its existence so flourishing as it is at the present moment. But besides their settlements along the East Coast of Africa, the Portuguese had a wealthy station at Ormuz, on the Persian Gulf, by means of which they tapped the trade of Persia. They even held Aden for a year, and were only driven out by the 68 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD Turks. What the Turks were doing dans cette galere is a question, the answer to which shows in the most graphic manner possible how the grasp of Portugal had shaken the world. The Turks were there as the allies of their ancient foes, the Vene- tians, who had stirred them up against the Portuguese by pointing out the danger that Portuguese settlements in the East might prove to be to the Sultan. With all the advantages of geographical position, of prior possessions, and of accumulated wealth, the Venetians, terrified at the rapid decline of their profits, could devise no means of grappling with the stout-hearted adventurers from the Tagus, except setting against them the huge machinery of their common foe, the Ottoman Empire. As regards Aden that sufficed, but the Portuguese were not to be driven from Ormuz. An immense and precious trade with the far East was set up by the settlement of Malacca. The Portuguese were the first Europeans in Madagascar, the Mauritius, the Maldives, Sumatra, the Moluccas, Siam, THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 69 and Arakan, and when one says the first Europeans there, one does not imply that they merely put in, or even that they sur- veyed and noted down the countries and peoples of the East. They settled, signed treaties, established factories, opened up the countries to trade, and in some cases even attained to some measure of local sovereignty, after the fashion of Rajah Brooke. Every fresh point reached was regarded by them, primarily, as the starting-point for the next. The more one studies, the more astounded one becomes at the sagacity and vitality shown by the explorers ; and in even greater measure at the profundity of a mind like Prince Henry's, that could direct so mighty a current of human force from the easy, the pious, the glorious, but entirely futile task of slaughtering Moslems or Spaniards, and set it flowing along courses dark and perilous, fraught with every danger to man known and unknown, and in which, for three- quarters of a century, there seemed neither profit nor comfort, nor hope of profit or comfort. Indeed, much that the Portuguese 70 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD achieved is almost incredible. When we reflect on the difficulty with which Europe has in our own time opened up communica- tions with Japan and China, it is scarcely credible that Portugal had achieved this object by individual effort, and apparently with little difficulty, as early as the reign of Edward VI. I have ventured the position that the lost empire of Portugal is more like the British Empire than any other empire that preceded the latter. It was founded as a commercial enterprise, and thence expanded into a military occupation, in precisely the same manner as the British Empire. There was this difference, that, whereas the British Empire was founded by private tradesmen, the Portuguese Empire in India was the undertaking of the sovereign. The kings and princes of Portugal had been its chief inspiration from the commencement, and it was only reasonable that, as they had borne the entire risk, they should take the lion's share of the profits. At its height the Portuguese Empire in India comprised Diu THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 71 and Daman and the considerable settlement of Goa, all of which the Portuguese still retain. They had numerous other settle- ments on the Malabar coast, the complete domination of the island of Ceylon, and out- posts at Ormuz and on the Hugli. These, together with the settlements on the coast of Africa, constituted their empire in the East. We have now to consider their settlements in the West, the great self-governing colony of Portugal, afterwards the Empire, and now the Republic of Brazil. We saw that Vasco da Gama reached Lisbon at the end of August, in the year 1499, on his return from his voyage round the Cape to India. The point on the Western Coast of India where it was decided to make the principal settlement for trade purposes was Calicut. The goodwill of the Rajah of Calicut must be conciliated as the first step towards opening up a trade with India. No time was lost in selecting a commander for this important mission, and in fitting out his ships. One would naturally expect that 72 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD Vasco da Gama would have been selected ; but the King was jealous of Vasco da Gama. Portugal had seen the last of her great kings, and was very near her decline when Pedro Alvares Cabral was appointed Admiral of the new Indian Fleet. Not that Cabral was incompetent, but the passing over of Da Gama shows a littleness in high places that we are not accustomed to in reading Portuguese history. It is open to question whether Cabral meant to discover Brazil or not. If he was as wary as he was daring, he probably took warning by the neglect of Da Gama, and wisely kept his counsel. It seems remark- able that, of the many score navigators who had left Portugal for the East, not one, in the eighty years of adventure that preceded Cabral's voyage, had encountered an easterly storm of any violence in the neighbourhood of Cape Verde. Such, however, was Cabral's version of what happened to him. He en- countered a storm of such fury that it blew him across the Atlantic, and compelled him to anchor in a new land, at a place that he THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 73 gratefully christened Porto Seguro. It was not until he had refitted, after discovering Brazil, that he proceeded on the compara- tively humdrum journey to the East Indies, with his presents for the Rajah of Calicut. Of course it is quite possible that the discovery of Brazil was a lucky accident, but it seems more likely that a man of Cabral's capacity and daring was not without de- signs. He found himself unexpectedly in command of a first-rate fleet. Eight years only had passed since Columbus had earned an immortal name by crossing the Atlantic. Why should he not do something in the same line ? Of course he must say nothing about his intention, for the example of Da Gama showed only too clearly what a sus- picious mind was his master's. Still, there could be no harm in succumbing to an adverse wind, and so Brazil was discovered. It was a very long time before Brazil was considered to be a place of any importance. Even the grasping ambition of Spain left Portugal in undisturbed possession of the coast-line from Maranham to the River Plate 74 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD apparently in indifference as to what they might be abandoning. Indeed, there was nothing to strike the imagination in Brazil. There were no ancient monarchies, such as those that confronted Pizarro and Cortez ; no pushing energetic captains like the Adil Shahis, who were founding the noble city of Bijapur when the Portuguese settled in Goa. The gold and the diamonds were discovered later, and cast an after-glow of splendour over the Portuguese monarchy in the days that followed the Captivity. But at first there was nothing to report, except the discovery of a well-watered, fertile-looking country, not unlike their own Portugal, inhabited by races of gentle savages, primitive and inquisitive, almost without arms quite without clothing and destitute of political institutions. This land soon began to be settled and colonized by thrifty Portuguese immigrants, and was destined to be the mainstay of the monarchy for long after the time when Holland and England had snatched her Eastern possessions from her failing grasp. THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 75 Was Portugal, then, swarming with a population seeking an outlet ? Are we to understand that Brazil was to Portugal what the self-governing colonies of England would be to the population-laden mother- country, if they rightly understood their own interests ? Unfortunately, it was not so. The whole population of Portugal at the present moment does not exceed the population of London. Four hundred years ago, it would probably be excessive to put it at three millions, of whom not one could be spared, if their native land was to be properly cultivated and defended. The colonization of Brazil was the result, not of a surplus population at home, but of two causes : one, persecution ; the other, a state of things in the Southern provinces of Portugal which must be separately examined ; and both subjects bring us face to face with the collapse of the Portuguese Empire. To say that an event is 'inevitable,' is an