ABSTRACT
The old notion that the Portuguese colonial empire was motivated by three G's – God, Gold and Glory – must be discarded. With the exception of Alfonso de Albuquerque in the 16th century, Marquis de Pombal in the 18th and Oliveira Salazar in the 20th, Portugal can hardly boast of any special genius for administration, whether of the colonies or of the mother-country. This lack of administrative acumen is matched by lack of interest in administrative matters among Portuguese chroniclers and historians. An analysis of the 19th century British imperial policy by two Cambridge dons, Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, would be applicable in this context to the Portuguese colonial policy in the 16th century. Since the commercial aspect of the Portuguese overseas activity predominated over the political and religious ones, one would expect that the system of government in the directly-administered colonies like Malacca would be conducive to prosperous trade.
