214 COMMERCE WITH nations of the Indian Archipelago ; and a sketch of the policy which they have pursued will be ne- cessary towards a proper understanding of the sub- ject of this chapter. As the Portuguese entered upon the field of Indian commerce a whole centu- ry earlier than the European nations who followed them, they necessarily began in a much ruder and less improved age than these, at a time when there was less disposable capital m the country, and when commercial transactions were necessarily less exten- sive. It was, besides, rather the spirit of the sove- reign than the genius of the society over which he presided, at no time commercial, that led to the Portuguese discoveries, and to their commerce with the Indies. These circumstances ought to be con- sidered in forming our judgment of the early In- dian trade of Portugal. It was, we may readily be- lieve, rather the revenue of the state or sovereign than the disposable capital of the nation, which was employed in setting the Indian trade in mo- tion. Neither the merchants of Portugal, nor indeed of any other part of Europe, except, perhaps, those of the commercial republics of Italy and the Low Countries, had, at the time, a navy capable of conducting a trade to India j so that, in short, if the sovereign had not un- dertaken it, the trade, it may be said, could not have existed at all. From these circumstances, the despotic nature of the Portuguese government, 4
