PORTUGUESE UTILIZATION OF NATIVE FACTIONS 149 An eloquent essayist has ascribed to Dupleix the original idea of building up a European power in Asia by taking advantage of the rivalries of native princes, and by the employment of disciplined native troops. Such a statement merely shows that India, while within the ample range of Macaulay's genius, lay outside the area of his exact knowledge. More than two centuries before the Frenchman reached India, the design had been deliberately formed and successfully carried out. Affonso de Albuquerque claimed no credit for the dis- covery; he merely extended the policy of his more commonplace predecessors, and handed it on to succes- sors who worked out its natural development. Almost any one of their intrigues might, with a change of geo- graphical names, stand for an intrigue of Dupleix. To cite but a single example: in 1521 the Portuguese having agreed to reinstate a Sumatra king who had been expelled, overthrew and killed his rival, and se- cured their own nominee on the throne in return for his submission to Portugal. The idea of employing disciplined Indian troops and of using Indian succession contests, as engines for European aggrandizement, was not struck out by the wit of any one man. It was the necessity of the Euro- pean position in Asia, and it was recognized as such by the Portuguese from the moment they secured a footing on the Malabar coast. The Indian anarchy from 1500 to 1550, which preceded the firm establishment of the Moghul empire, gave them half a century to carry out their design. The grasp of the Moghul empire after
