_ 477 _ Straits of Ormuz and the Red Sea, and by the attempt to appropriate inter-regional trade, the volume of which exceeded that which flowed along the Levant route even including the traffic along the new route opened by Vasco da Gama(A). The exchange of goods in the Orient underlay the fat profits of customs houses such as that of Ormuz, in which the King and the officials had an interest, and the Portuguese diaspora along the coastal rim of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, the seed of the energetic Portuguese presence in regions of southern Asia. The Portuguese arrived in the East without a definite plan of how they were to achieve the objectives which had been set, nor did their policies remain constant in the face of the first positive results. An attempt to regulate matters in India is set out in the standing orders given to D. Francisco Almeida in 1505. These stipulated a policy of control of the seas and the establishment of bases on islands close to the principal centres of economic and strategic importance: on the (A) The Portuguese only disturbed the Levant route and never closed it completely. See Godinho,op.cit.vol.II,pp.111 ff.
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