ABSTRACT
After its conquest by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510, Goa was made the capital of the Estado da India for the most part under a governor-general with authority over all the Portuguese possessions in Asia and Africa. The defeat and destruction of the Spanish Armada in 1588 gave the English and the Dutch a big boost in their dreams of trading with the East. The Dutch had established firm trading connections in the East Indies where the Portuguese had a virtual monopoly of spice trade bound for Europe. The French trading efforts began in 1601 but were jeopardized by the Dutch. The first French factory was established just like those of the English and the Dutch, in the Mughal port of Surat, in 1668 by Francois Caron. Within five years, on December 31, 1600, 125 English shareholders, mostly merchants, invested 72,000 pounds in what they called the East India Company.
