being united to Spain, the trade would now be directed through the southern low countries (roughly present-day Belgium), which according to the Union of Arras (or Union of Atrecht) were pledged to the Spanish monarch and were Roman Catholic, as opposed to the Dutch Protestant north. This also meant that the Dutch had lost their most profitable trade partner and their most important source of financing the war against Spain. Additionally, the Dutch would lose their distribution monopoly with France, the Holy Roman Empire, and northern Europe. The Portuguese Empire in the Indian Ocean was a traditional thalassocracy that had extended its reach to every major choke point in the ocean. Trade in the area corresponded also to a traditional triangular model whereupon small manufactures would be brought from Europe and traded in Africa for gold and several items, then these would serve to purchase spices in India proper which were then brought back to Europe and traded at immense profit which would be reinvested into ships and troops, to be sent eastwards. The Portuguese State of India, headquartered in Goa, was a network of key cities which controlled the maritime trade in the Indian Ocean: Sofala was the base for Portuguese operations in East Africa and was supported by Kilwa to better control the Mozambique Channel; from here, the routes took the trade to Goa which was the hub for the rest of the operations and where the India Convoy ships out of Europe arrived; from Goa, going northwards, the trade would be protected by the North and Adventurers Fleets all the way to Daman and Diu which oversaw the northern trade and the Gulf of Cambay; while the Fleet of the North escorted merchant ships the Adventurers Fleet would also seek to disrupt the Mecca trade between northern India's Muslims and the Arabian Peninsula; the Diu Fleet would then connect the trade to Hormuz which controlled the Persian Gulf routes and interrupted the Basrah-Suez trade; southwards from Goa, the Cape Comorin Fleet would escort the Goa merchants to Calicut and Cochin on the Malabar Coast and to Ceylon and the connection to the Bay of Bengal; in the Bay of Bengal, the most lucrative trade was on the Coromandel Coast where such settlements as São Tomé of Mylapore and Pulicat served as hubs; it was in the Coromandel and Ceylon settlements where the ships out of the Malacca