When Vasco da Gama returned to Lisbon from India on August 29, 1499, he brought a century of Portuguese exploration and reconaissance to its conclusion, and inaugurated a new era of commercial and colonial expansion in the East. After Portuguese navigators had made countless voyages along the west coast of Africa to seek the products of that continent, contact with the legendary Christian kingdom of Prester John, and an all-water route to India, da Gama finally proved that the much-wanted spices of India could be brought to Europe by a route around the Cape of Good Hope.

Manuel the Fortunate,...

Although, my Catholic King and Lord, I have advised more than once Your Most Serene Majesty of our success in other letters of mine, after we had already begun our traffic and trade in the lands of India in our name, yet, at the present time, because of the arrival of some of our ships, it has seemed opportune to me to make a report of their news. And repeating whatever we have written in our previous letters, in order that you might be excellently informed of everything, it has seemed opportune to me to recall all the information from...