A Forgotten Empire (Vijayanagar): A Contribution to the History of India c2.18

c2.18

I trust that my remarks regarding the causes of the downfall of Portuguese trade in the sixteenth century will not be misunderstood. It is not in any spirit of criticism or comparison that I have written those passages. History, however, is history; and it is a fact that while the main cause of the small success which attended the efforts of the Portuguese to establish a great and lasting commerce with India was no doubt the loss of trade after the destruction of Vijayanagar, there must be added to this by the impartial recorder the dislike of the inhabitants to the violence and despotism of the Viceroys and to the uncompromising intolerance of the Jesuit Fathers, as well as the horror engendered in their minds by the severities of the terrible Inquisition at Goa.