This book has been written as a contribution to a specific field of European expansion. It is not a history of China, Southeast Asia or the Indian sub-continent during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Asia is the centrepiece on which I chose to examine hypotheses about the nature of the Portuguese empire, its survival, its involvement in maritime trade, the role played by the private merchant, and early East–West relations.

Prevailing in this book are those ideas that were originally presented in my doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge. I have benefited from a period of reflection and rewriting in order to focus my argument and presentation. While a doctoral candidate, my work benefited from the guidance of my supervisor, Mr G. V. Scammell of Pembroke College. My thanks to Dr F. P. Bowser of Stanford University, who first guided my interest in Portuguese colonial society, Dr J. S. Bastin and Dr R. B. Smith of the School of Oriental and African Studies, who introduced me to the history of Southeast Asia. I have benefited from comments by Professors C. R. Boxer, D. C. Twitchett, T'ien Ju-Kang, and Dr G. Johnson, Dr A. das Gupta, Dr J. E. Wills, Jr, and Dr W. Atwell, who read early drafts of this work. In particular, Dr K. N. Chaudhuri elaborated a very useful and instructive critique.

My gratitude to Mrs Margaret King and Miss Elsa Streitman, lecturer in the University of Cambridge, for their introduction to the Dutch language.