END OF PORTUGUESE POWEK IN ASIA 57 the Persian Gulf, as it had gone down before the Eng- lish in 1612 and 1615 on the Indian coast. In the last years of her proud nationality, Portugal had divided her Asiatic empire into three governments (1571): the coast of East Africa, India with the Persian Gulf from Cape Guardafui to Ceylon, and the Eastern Archi- pelago with its headquarters at Malacca. Nine years later (1580) she was forced into union with Spain, and within a generation a new power from the North had broken her chain of Asiatic possessions at the middle link. Her two other governments on the African coast and in the Eastern Archipelago, thus thrust asunder, became an easy prey. From 1622, India and the Per- sian Gulf lay open to England so far as Portugal was concerned. Before Portugal could break loose from Spain and reassert her independence in 1640, her su- premacy in the Asiatic seas had become a legend of the past. In 1642 she partially, and in 1654 she finally, accepted the situation, and agreed that the English should have the right to reside and trade in all her Eastern possessions. The treaty which assured this latter agreement was one entered into between Oliver Cromwell and King John IV of Portugal, and dated at Westminster, July 10, 1654. It has a special impor- tance as marking the end of the old Portuguese monop- oly and formulating the new policy of England in the East.
