It is important to observe the position of Portugal in Asia and South America during the half-century which succeeded the "Sixty Years' Captivity," and to see how the despised discovery of Pedro Alvares Cabral was to more than take the place of the vaunted Asiatic connection commenced by the voyage of Vasco da Gama. The heavy blows struck by the Dutch and English against the Portuguese monopoly of the Eastern trade before the successful revolution in 1640, have already been noticed, and the ruin of the Portuguese in Asia was consummated by the Dutch during the long naval war which succeeded the attack upon their settlements in Brazil. The China trade had not attained very important dimensions, so the Dutch left the Portuguese undisturbed at Macao, but they destroyed their settlements in the island of Formosa, and the English absorbed what trade there was by their factory at Canton. It was the spice trade and the command of the Spice Islands, which the Dutch chiefly coveted, and of which they obtained a monopoly, which they practically retain to this day. After the foundation of Batavia, all the efforts of the Dutch were directed against Malacca, which, though in a decayed state, was yet mistress of no inconsiderable trade; twice they stirred up the Achinese to attempt the conquest of Alboquerque's famous settlement, but the Portuguese beat off the natives, and it was not until 1640 that the Dutch destroyed the rival of Batavia. The Portuguese made no further effort to share the spice trade, and after the massacre of the English at Amboyna in 1624, the more dangerous rivalry of the merchants of that nation was also withdrawn. In India, the Dutch made a point of securing the pepper trade only, and left the English to absorb that of the products of Northern India, of the muslins of Dacca and the brocades of Ahmadabad and Surat. The Portuguese repulsed the Dutch from Goa in 1639, but these determined traders were not to be beaten; in 1662, in spite of the peace which had been concluded by the intervention of England, they took Cochin, the principal Portuguese station in Southern India, and by 1664 were masters of all the chief pepper ports on the Malabar coast. They were equally successful in Ceylon, where they captured Jafnapatam, the last important Portuguese port, in 1658; and in 1669, they expelled the Portuguese from the Coromandel coast likewise, and took S. Thomé and Macassar. In Northern India the English were the most formidable rivals of the Portuguese. After the capture of H[=u]gl[=i] by the orders of Shah Jeh[=a]n, the Portuguese dropped all communication with Bengal, and the trade of that important province fell into the hands of the English. On the other side of India, the English were equally successful. Their victory off Surat had broken the prestige of Portugal, and the trade with Gujar[=a]t, Kathiaw[=a]r, and Sind was chiefly in their possession. So weak indeed had the Portuguese become, that Diu, the city immortalized by the brave deeds of Antonio de Silveira and João de Castro, was plundered by a band of Arabs in 1670; and Goa itself, "Golden Goa," was only saved from the Mar[=a]thas of Sambajì, the son of Sivajì, by the timely aid of a Mogul army. On the other hand, the Portuguese Jesuits won a reputation almost as great as that of the Portuguese heroes; though the Inquisition still continued its horrid work at Goa, there were nobler missionaries than the inquisitors, and the name of João de Brito, who preached with unexampled success until his cruel martyrdom in Madura in 1693, deserves to be ranked with that of St. Francis Xavier himself. In Africa, the chief Portuguese ports were re-conquered by Salvador Correa de Sá e Benevides in 1648, but they were only of little value, since they had been maintained chiefly as stations on the road to India, and not for purposes of African trade. The Dutch made their resting-place at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the reason why Mozambique was left to the Portuguese; and they also took possession of the rich island which had been first sighted by Lourenço de Almeida, to which they gave the name of Mauritius, after Prince Maurice of Nassau. On the western coast the Portuguese retained Angola, the Cape Verde Islands, and their other possessions; but they lost St. Helena to the Dutch, who held it until it was captured by the English captain, Anthony Munden, in 1673, when it was made into a station of the English East India Company. With their possessions in Morocco, the Portuguese parted with the more willingness, since they were only a source of expense; and the cession of Ceuta to the Spaniards and of Tangier to the English was generally approved.