On the 17th of March, 1498, Gama reached Melinda, and was consequently completely within the boundary of the Greek and Roman discovery and commerce in this part of the world.  This city is represented as well built, and displaying in almost every respect, proofs of the extensive trade the inhabitants carried on with India, and of the wealth they derived from it.  Here Gama saw, for the first time, Banians, or Indian merchants:  from them he received much important information respecting the commercial cities of the west coast of India:  and at Melinda he took on board pilots, who conducted his fleet across the Indian Ocean to Calicut on the coast of Malabar, where he landed on the 22d of May, 1498, ten months and two days after his departure from Lisbon.  He returned to Lisbon in 1499, and again received the command of a squadron in 1502; he died at Cochin in 1525, after having lived to witness his country sovereign of the Indian seas from Malacca to the Cape of Good Hope.  “The consequence of his discovery was the subversion of the Turkish power, which at that time kept all Europe in alarm.  The East no longer paid tribute for her precious commodities, which passed through the Turkish provinces; the revenues of that empire were diminished; the Othmans ceased to be a terror to the western world, and Europe has risen to a power, which the three other continents may in vain endeavour to oppose.”

The successful enterprize of Gama, and the return of his ships laden not only with the commodities peculiar to the coast of Malabar, but with many of the richer and rarer productions of the eastern parts of India, stimulated the Portuguese to enter on this new career with avidity and ardour, both military and commercial.  It fortunately happened that Emanuel, who was king of Portugal at this period, was a man of great intelligence and grasp of mind, capable of forming plans with prudence and judgment, and of executing them with method and perseverance; and it was equally fortunate that such a monarch was enabled to select men to command in India, who from their enterprize, military skill, sagacity, integrity, and patriotism, were peculiarly qualified to carry into full and successful execution all his views and plans.

The consequences were such as must always result from the steady operation of such causes:  twenty-four years after the voyage of Gama, and before the termination of Emanuel’s reign, the Portuguese had reached, and made themselves masters of Malacca.  This place was the great staple of the commerce carried on between the east of Asia, including China, and the islands and the western parts of India.  To it the merchants of China, Japan, the Moluccas, &c. came from the east, and those of Malabar, Ceylon, Coromandel and Bengal, from the west; and its situation, nearly at an equal distance from the eastern and western parts of India, rendered it peculiarly favorable for this trade, while by possessing the command of the straits through which all ships must pass from the one extremity of Asia to the other, it had the monopoly of the most extensive and lucrative commerce completely within its power.