From Malacca the Portuguese sailed for the conquest of the Moluccas; and by achieving this, secured the monopoly of spices.  Their attempt to open a communication and trade with China, which was made about the same time, was not then successful:  but by perseverance they succeeded in their object, and before the middle of the sixteenth century, exchanged, at the island of Sancian, the spices of the Moluccas, and the precious stones and ivory of Ceylon, for the silks, porcelain, drugs, and tea of China.  Soon afterwards the emperor of China allowed them to occupy the island of Macao.  In 1542 they succeeded in forming a commercial intercourse with Japan, trading with it for gold, silver and copper; this trade, however, was never extensive, and it ceased altogether in 1638, when they were driven from the Japanese territories.

As the commodities of India could not be purchased except with large quantities of gold, the Portuguese, in order to obtain it, as well as for other commercial advantages, prosecuted their discoveries on the east of Africa, at the same time that they were extending their power and commerce in India.  On the east of Africa, between Sofala and the Red Sea, Arabian colonies had been settled for many centuries:  these the Portuguese navigators visited, and gradually reduced to tribute; and the remains of the empire they established at this period, may still be traced in the few and feeble settlements they possess between Sofala and Melinda.  In 1506 they visited and explored the island of Madagascar; in 1513, by the expulsion of the Arabs from Aden, the Red Sea was opened to their ships; and they quickly examined its shores and harbours, and made themselves acquainted with its tedious and dangerous navigation.  In 1520 they visited the ports of Abyssinia, but their ambition and the security of their commerce were not yet completely attained; the Persian Gulf, as well as the Red Sea, was explored; stations were formed on the coasts of both:  and thus they were enabled to obstruct the ancient commercial intercourse between Egypt and India, and to command the entrance of those rivers, by which Indian goods were conveyed not only through the interior of Asia, but also to Constantinople.  By the conquest of Ormus, the Portuguese monopolised that extensive trade to the East, which had been in the hands of the Persians for several centuries.  “In the hands of the Portuguese this island soon became the great mart from which the Persian empire, and all the provinces of Asia to the west of it, were supplied with the productions of India:  and a city which they built on that barren island, destitute of water, was rendered one of the chief seats of opulence, splendour, and luxury in the eastern world.”

The Venetians, who foresaw the ruin of their oriental commerce in the success of the Portuguese, in vain endeavoured to stop the progress of their rivals in the middle of the sixteenth century:  the latter, masters of the east coast of Africa, of the coasts of Arabia and Persia, of the two peninsulas of India, of the Molucca islands, and of the trade to China and Japan, supplied every part of Europe with the productions of the east, by the Cape of Good Hope; nor was their power and commerce subverted, till Portugal became a province of Spain.