_ 161 _ from a commercial to a political one. What predominates in Fragment 19 is the economic aspect, that is, that the men who are going to the Samorin with the Indians brought to Portugal by Vasco da Gama are to tell him that you have come to trade and that we are sending you to him to agree peace and amity...which we have long desired, and also trade. In Document III, the religious motive takes first place in the voyage to India, and the economic reason takes second place, and according to the ethic of the age, I identify the first of these as a political motive. In Fragment 19, moreover, the affirmation that the Samorin deserves to be sought out because he is a Christian king is limited. There appears to have been considerable discussion between one version and the other on the matter and the way in which to present it, because the text of Document III was substantially modified at this point in relation to Fragment 19. I believe that the hypothesis of an economic basis to expansion is given solid backing in the text of Fragment 19, the official and authentic text, which brings into direct focus the tangible reality of the problems of the age.
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