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THE RISE OF
PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
H97— i55o
THE RISE OF
PORTUGUESE POWER
IN INDIA 1497— 1550
V BY
;
R. S. Whiteway
Bengal Civil Service (Retired)
W
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WESTMINSTER
ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & Co
2 Whitehall Gardens
1899
^98
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PREFACE
I KNOW of no English book which quite covers the
ground that I have attempted to explore. The nearest
approach to the subject was made in "The History of the
Portuguese [in India," published a few years since, but I
have been unable to avail myself of the undoubted erudition
of the author as he has not connected his narrative in any
way with the general history of India.
In the study of Oriental history the absence of surnames
is a great drawback, each individual stands alone, and his
name awakens no chord of sympathy as when we read of
the Cecil under Elizabeth and of the Cecil under Victoria.
The Portuguese occupy an intermediate position between
the East and West; the son, as a rule, takes his father's
name, but not always : it requires some research to discover
that Pero da Silva, Alvaro d'Ataide and Estavao da Gama
were all three sons of Vasco da Gama, and meanwhile our
interest is dulled.
In the matter of Oriental names the Portuguese transliter-
ation presents some difficulties — Carcamdacao for Sikandar
Khan, Codavascao for Khuda Bakhsh Khan, and Xacoez
for Shaikh Iwaz are soluble, but some have defied indentifi
cation. Where possible the name has been taken from the
"Tahafatu-1-Mujahidfn", from Elliot's "History of India "
or from Bayley's "Gujarat." Before leaving the subject
of names it may be noted that the different systems of
cataloguing the Portuguese writers throws some difficulty
in the way of enquirers. One of the early historians is
VI PREFACE
Fernao Lopez de Castanheda; he is usually quoted as
Castanheda and the custom has been followed here, but in
the British Museum catalogue he will be found under Lopez,
and, worse than all, under Fernao in that monumental work,
the Bibliotheca Lusitana of Diogo Barbosa Machado.
I have endeavoured to give a history of the rise of the Por-
tuguese power in India derived from the best available sources,
and to give, not merely a record of military expeditions and
of the change of governors, but also the details which throw
light on the social life and on the idiosyncrasies of the
chief men of the time. I hope I may have succeeded.
The Portuguese connection with Ceylon has been so fully
dealt with by Sir Emerson Tennant, and its connection
with the Malay States by Crawfurd, that only a summary
has been added to give completeness to this book. If the
subject prove of sufficient interest the work will be concluded
with a volume on the decline of the Portuguese power
in India.
In the first four chapters authorities have been freely
quoted; in the remaining ones they are only given where
the narrative is not based on the following historians :
Castanheda to 1538
Correa to 1550
Barros to 1526
Couto from 1526 to 1550
I have to thank Sir Alfred Lyall and Mr. E. White for
valuable suggestions and advice.
CONTENTS
Page
BIBLIOGRAPHY ix
CHAPTER i. Introductory i
„ ii. Portuguese. — Malabar 14
„ in. Arms and Methods of Warfare — Voyages-
Piracy— Land Journeys 33
„ iv. Religion— Coinage — Remuneration of Offi-
cers-Banished Men— Appendix .... 58
v. 1497— 1501 77
„ vi. 1502— 1504 90
„ vii. D. Francisco d' Almeida, Viceroy, 1505— 1509 104
„ viii. Afonso d' Albuquerque, Governor
1509— 1515 128
„ ix. Lopo Soares, Governor— Diogo Lopes
de Sequiera, Governor. 1515— 1521 ... 179
„ X. D. DUARTE DE MENEZES, GOVERNOR — D. VaSCO
da Gama, Viceroy— D. Henrique de
Menezes, Governor— Lopo Vaz de Sampayo,
Governor, 152 1— 1529. Appendix I: Suc-
cessions — Appendix II: Revenue Set-
tlement of Goa 199
„ xl nuno da cunha, governor, 1529— 1538 . . 221
„ xii. D. Garcia de Noronha, Viceroy— D. Estavao
da Gama, Governor. 1538 — 1542 .... 261
, xiii. Martim Afonso de Sousa, Governor,
1542— 1545. slmao botelho, comptroller
of Revenue 279
„ xiv. D. Joao de Castro, Governor and Viceroy—
Garcia de Sa, Governor— Jorge Cabral,
Governor. 1545—1550 299
APPENDIX. . Malacca— The Moluccas— China .... 326
INDEX 34i
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Except where specially stated below, the quotations in
the Notes give the reference to the page of the edition
mentioned here.
Albuquerque, Afonso d', Cartas, quoted as Cartas.
Vol. I, published by the Royal Academy of Lisbon
in 1884.
Vol. II, promised, but not yet published.
Where they are contemporaneous the Letters supersede
the Commentaries, but they do not cover so long a period.
Albuquerque, Afonso d', Commentaries.
Translation. Hakluyt Society. 4 volumes. 1875— 1884.
Alvarez, Father Francisco, Narrative of the Portuguese
Embassy to Abyssinia, 1320 — 152J.
Translation. Hakluyt Society. 1881.
Andrade, J. F. d', Vida de D. Joao de Castro, quoted
in the text as Vida.
The Edition used is that edited by Fr. Francisco de
S. Luiz and published by the Royal Lisbon Academy in
1835. It is a bombastic and untrustworthy work.
Annaes Maritimos E Coloniaes, quoted as An. Mar.
e Col.
A periodical in 6 volumes or series, 1840—46. The
reprints of original papers are contained in the non-official
part. They unfortunately follow no order of any kind,
alphabetical or chronological. The documents appear to
have been literally transcribed and are very important.
X BIBLIOGRAPHY
Archivo Portuguez Oriental, quoted as Ar. Port. Or.
Most of the quotations give the number of the Fasci -
cuius and of the document, a few, when the fact is noted,
give the page of the volume. These are publications of
State papers from the Goa Archives. They commence
from 1515 and are of the greatest interest.
Fasciculo 1. Letters from the King of Portugal to the
City of Goa. — 2nd Edition, One Volume. 1877.
Fasciculo 2. Privileges of the City of Goa, including
copies of complaints made to the King by the City. —
One Volume. 1857.
Fasciculo 3. Letters and Orders of the King of Portugal
to Viceroys and Governors. — Two Volumes. 1861.
Fasciculo 4. Ecclesiastical Councils of Goa and the
Synod of Diamper.— One Volume. 1862.
Fasciculo 5. Miscellaneous Documents. — Three Vol-
umes. 1863.
Fasciculo 6. Miscellaneous orders of the King and Viceroy,
commencing with the 17th century.— One Volume. 1875.
Bavley, Sir E. C, Giijarat, 1886.
A collection of the local histories of Guzerat, translated
on the principle of Elliot's "History of India." Unfortun-
ately only Vol. I was ever published.
Barbosa, Duarte, The Coasts of East Africa and Malabar.
Translation from the Spanish. Hakluyt Society. 1866.
Barbosa went to India as early as 1500. Correa fre-
quently praises his learning and his knowledge of the
Indian languages.
Barbosa, Duarte, Same work in Portuguese.
Published by the Royal Lisbon Academy in 1867.
Barros, Joao de,
COUTO, DlOGO DE,
The quotations are given by Decades, Books and Chapters.
Barros is an official historian: he is rhetorical and wai
never in India. His facts are well arranged, but as an
authority he ranks below those who knew the country. His
\ Dccadas. 24 Volumes. 1778 — 1788.
BIBLIOGRAPHY XI
statements sometimes clash with those of the original
documents and occasionally show extreme ignorance of
India. Three Decades, ending with the death of Henrique
de Menezes, were published between 1552 and 1563, in
the author's lifetime. The fourth Decade, which purports
to have been made up from notes, was published in 161 5 ;
its value is small. Couto, who continued the work from
the end of the third decade, was also an official historian,
but he spent almost all, if not all, his life in India after
1556. His 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Decades alone were printed
during the author's lifetime; the 6th Decade was burned
after printing, before publication, and we learn from Barbosa
Machado in his work, Bibliotheca Lusitana, s. v. Adeodato
da Trinidade, that Adeodato, who was Couto's brother-in-law,
touched up the sixth Decade previous to reprinting into the
form we now have it, to please certain persons who did not
like the unvarnished narrative of Couto. The remainder
of Couto's papers came also into the possession of this
brother-in-law. The 8th and 9th Decades were stolen in
Couto's lifetime from his house while still in manuscript—
what we have now is an abstract prepared by him. The
nth, though it was written, has never been found; its place
has been supplied by a compilation of the Editor in the
edition used here. The 8th Decade was published in 1673
the 9th in 1736; 5 Books of the 12th (all that exist), to the
end of the term of D. Francisco da Gama, in 1645. The
10th Decade, which was the first composed, was not printed
in full until 1788. Couto died in 1616. Where his history
is untouched it is of great value.
Bermudez, D. Joao de, Breve relacao da embaixada.
Published in 1565 and reissued by the Royal Lisbon
Academy in 1875.
Bocarro, Antonio de, Decada XIII. Written in 1635.
First published in two volumes by the Royal Lisbon
Academy in 1872.
BOTELHO, Simao, Tombo do Estado da India. Written
in 1554.
First published in Subsidios by the Royal Academy of
Lisbon in 1868.
XII BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOTELHO, Simao, Cartas. Letters dated from 1547 — 1552.
Contained in the same volume as the Tombo with
separate paging.
Cabral, Pedro Alvarez, Navegacao. A Contemporary
account of his voyage written by an anonymous pilot.
Published first in Ramusio, Vol I, and translated from
Italian into Portuguese and Published by the Royal Lisbon
Academy in 1867.
Calcoen.
A Dutch narrative of the second voyage of Vasco
da Gama, translated into English by J. Ph. Berjean and
published in 1874— very valuable, but wants editing.
Camoens, Luiz de, Os Lnsiadas.
Castanheda, Fernao Lopez de, Historia do descobrimento
e Conquista da India.
A history in 8 books, ending with the term of Nuno
da Cunha. Quoted in the text with the number of the
book and chapter from the reprint of 1S33. Couto (IV. 5. 1.)
tells us that there were originally 10 books, but 2 were
destroyed by order of the King on the complaint of certain
persons that the truth was told too plainly. Castanheda
went to India in 1528 and stayed there about ten years.
All his history is very valuable indeed, more especially the
first six books. Where his work can be compared with
original documents it stands the test well. Books 1 to 6
were printed partly in 1552 and partly in 1554, the last two
in 1561 after the author's death.
CaSTANIIOSO, MIGUEL, Historia das cousas que o niuy
esforcado capita D. Cliristovao da Gama fez nos Reyuos
do Preste Joao.
A history of the Abyssinian expedition under Christovao
da Gama in 1541, by a member of it. Printed in 1564 and
republished by the Royal Lisbon Academy in 1S55. A most
noteworthy narrative.
X CASTRO, D. Joao, Roteiro no a); no de i^qi.
Published in [833.
BIBLIOGRAPHY XIII
CASTRO, D. Joao, Primeiro roteiro da Costa da India.
(1538— 1539.)
Published 1843.
Both the above logs contain passages of considerable
value; that of his voyage out as Governor in 1545 is of little
use. His letters are scattered over several periodicals. See
Investigador Portuguez— Instituto— Revista Universal.
Coleridge, Father H. J., Life of St. Francis Xavier.
2 Vols. 1890.
CORREA, Gaspar, Lendas da India.
First published by the Royal Lisbon Academy in
4 Volumes. 1858—61. Correa went out first in 1512, part
of his history was written as late as 1566; the date of his
death is unknown. It would be easy to prove from the
work that he had Castanheda's history before him when
he wrote. Vol. I is legendary, the atmosphere is oriental
and the facts are very dubious. The other volumes begin-
ning with the term of Albuquerque, whose secretary Correa
was, are of the very highest interest. A translation of the
three voyages of Vasco da Gama from the Lendas was
published by the Hakluyt Society in 1869.
Couto, DiOGO de, Decadas. See Barros.
Couto, DiOGO DE, So/dado Pratico.
Published in 1790. A diffuse work on the evils that
afflicted the Portuguese Government of India at the end
of the 16th century, written with much parade of learning.
The author died in 1616.
Della VALLE, PlETRO, Travels.
Translation. Hakluyt Society. 2 Vols. 1892.
ELLIOT, Sir H., History of India. 8 Vols. 1867 — jj.
Empoli Joao de, Viagem. (1503.)
Published in Ramusio Vol. I, translated into Portuguese
and published by the Royal Lisbon Academy in 1867.
Falcao, Luiz de FlGUEIREDO, Livro em que se content
toda a fazenda e real patrimonio (161 2) 1859.
A monument of the industry of the Secretary to Philip III
of Spain and II of Portugal, first published in 1859.
XIV BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fart A v Sousa, Manoel, Asia Portugiieza.
A late writer in Spanish. 3 Volumes. 1674. Vols. I
and II are little more than compilations from Barros and
Couto. An English translation by Captain J. Stevens in
3 Vols, published in 1695 is incomplete. It omits whole
passages.
Fonseca, Jose Nicolau de, Goa, 1878.
Published in English in connection with the Indian
Gazetteer.
FRYER, Dr. John, New account of the East Indies and
Persia. 1698.
Galvano, A., Discoveries of the World.
Translation. Hakluyt Society. 1862.
Hakluyt, Richard, Principal Navigations of the English
Navigators.
5 Volumes. 1809— 1812.
IBN BATUTA, Travels.
Translated by Lee. (O. T. F.) 1829.
Instituto, O, Coimbra. 2 Vols. 1854.
Some of D. Joao de Castro's letters were published in
this periodical.
Investigador Portuguez. Vol. XVI. 181 1.
In this volume of this periodical were published some
of D. Joao de Castro's letters.
Leguat, Francois, Voyage.
Translation. Hakluyt Society. 2 Vols. 1891.
LEMBRANCA Das Cousas da India. (1525.)
Published in Subsidios by the Royal Lisbon Academy, 1S68.
LlNSCHOTEN, Voyages.
Translation. Hakluyt Society. 2 Vols. 1S85.
LlVROS Dos MONCOES, 4 Volumes.
Published by the Royal Academy of Lisbon, 1880— 1893.
The records reprinted run from 1568 to 1618
BIBLIOGRAPHY XV
Logan, IV., Malabar. 2 Vols. 1887.
LOPES Th0ME\ Navegacao. (1502.)
First published in Ramusio Vol. 1, this was translated
back into Portuguese and published by the Royal Academy
of Lisbon in 1867. The author has considerable literary
ability.
Magalhaens, Fernao, Roteiro da Viagem.
Published by the Royal Lisbon Academy, 1826.
Magalhaens, Fernao, The First Voyage round the World.
Hakluyt Society. 1874.
Major, R. H., India in the ' XVth Century.
Hakluyt Society. 1857.
Major, R. H., Life of Prince Henry of Portugal. 1868.
MlDDLETON, Sir H., Voyage to Bantam and Maluco.
Hakluyt Society. 1855.
Mocquet, Jean, Voyages. 1830.
This is a reprint of the earlier edition. The voyage to
Goa was in 1608.
Nazareth, Jose" Maria do Carmo, Numismatica da India
Portugueza. 1 890.
NUNES, Antonio, Livro dos pesos medidas e moedas.
Published in Subsidios by the Royal Academy of Lisbon,
1868. Written in 1554.
Orta, Garcia de, Colloquios dos simples e drogas e cousas
medicinaes da India. 1872.
First published in 1563. It covers far more ground than
its title promises.
Pinto, Fernao Mendez, Perigranacoes. 4 Vols. 1829.
A romance with some traditions embedded. First
published in' 1614, it professes to relate events for some
years from 1538.
XVI BIBLIOGRAPHY
Purchas, Samuel, His Pilgrimes. 1625 — 26.
Pyrard, Francois, Voyage.
Translation. Hakluyt Society. 2 Vols. 1887—90.
Rae, George Milnes, The Syrian Church in India. 1892.
R.EBELLO, Gabriel, Informacao das Cousas de Maluco.
Published by the Royal Academy of Lisbon, 1856. A
valuable book written in 1569.
Revista Universal. 2nd series. Vol. I. 1849.
Contains one letter of D. Joao de Castro.
ROTEIRO DA VlAGEM DE Vasco da Gama. 2nd edition. 1 86 1.
A translation has been published by the Hakluyt Society.
Rowlandson, Tahdfat til Majdhidin. (O. T. F.) 1833.
Stephens, H. Morse, Portugal in "Story of the Nations"
Series. 1891.
STEPHENS, H. Morse, Albuquerque in the "Rulers of India"
Series. 1892.
Subsidios, see Botelho, Lembranqa, Nunes.
Tenreyro, Antonio, Itinerario. 1829.
A reprint of an interesting account of an overland
journey in 1528.
Varthema, Ludovico di, Travels.
Translation. Hakluyt Society. 1863.
Yule, Sir H., Marvels described by Fr. Jordanus.
Hakluyt Society. 1863.
YULE, Sir H., Cathay and the Way Thither. 2 Vols.
Hakluyt Society. 1866.
YULE, Sir H., Glossary. 1886.
CHAPTER I
Introductory
BEFORE the last quarter of the 15th century the Indian
Ocean was to the Christian nations of the West a closed
sea, penetrated only by a few daring explorers. The Cape
of Good Hope was unknown, and the routes overland from
the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf had been barred to
Christians by the advance of the followers of the Muham-
edan faith. Africa, which bounds that ocean on the west,
has changed but little during the last four centuries. Then,
as now, it exported raw material only; and among its in-
digenous population there were no seafaring races. India,
which bounds it on the east, had advanced far on the road
of civilization, but the majority of its inhabitants were of the
Hindu religion and were debarred by its tenets from crossing
the sea. In the 5 th century Chinese ships were seen as
far north as the banks of the Euphrates ; the length of
their voyages, however, gradually lessened, and by the
beginning of the 15th century they came no further than
the Malabar Coast. About the middle of that century they
ceased to visit India altogether; but when the Portuguese
reached Calicut, their memory was quite fresh in the minds
of the people. '
At the time when this history opens, the whole of the carry-
ing trade of the Indian Ocean, both to the east and to the
1 The Arabs visited China from a very early date. In the 15th century
the Calicut people were called Chini bachagan. — India in the 15th Century:
Abdu-r-razak, p. 19.
2 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
west, was in the hands of those who dwelt on its northern
littoral. The wealth that the monopoly of this carrying trade
poured through those two gates, the mouth of the Red Sea
and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, into the marts of Arabia
and Persia, has tinged the dreams of the Arabian Nights and
given a definite bent to the popular conception of the East.
But it did more — it supplied the sinews of war without which
the fanaticism of the Muhamedan armies would in vain have
attempted a footing in Europe. The chief importance to the
world at large of the discovery of the route to India by the
Cape of Good Hope lay in the blow that this discovery
struck at the Muhamedan power. It is true that Spain and
Portugal had freed themselves before Vasco da Gama sailed
from the Tagus, and it is true that for many years after the
Portuguese fleets had temporarily cleared the Indian Ocean of
the Red Sea traders, the Turkish advance hung like a night-
mare over Venice and Hungary, nevertheless the main artery
had been cut when the Portuguese took up the challenge of
the Muhamedan merchants of Calicut and swept their ships
from the ocean. I propose to trace the events — often gloomy
and even repulsive — that accompanied the intrusion of this
Western power into the alien civilization of the East, — an in-
trusion which that East has resented by absorbing and de-
grading the intruder. Disastrous though the results have been
to the nation that opened the new route, the effect on the
history of the world of its action has been imperishable, and
Portugal can look back with pride to the strenuous efforts of
a century that culminated in the discovery of the Cape of
Good Hope by Bartholomew Dias, and to the pages of its
history that are illuminated by the names of Albuquerque,
Duarte Pacheco, Magalhaens, ' and of the uncle Paulo and
his nephews, Estavao and Christovao da Gama.
1 Better known in England as Magellan.
INTRODUCTORY 3
From before the dawn of history the Arabs had been
the carriers of the merchandize of the East across the
Indian Ocean, and after the discovery, in the first cen-
tury of our era, of the succession of the seasons which
enabled ships to cross and recross with regularity, they
monopolized this carrying trade. ' They had a large ad-
mixture of Semitic blood in their veins, and had at least one
peculiarity of that race very strongly marked — they were
not producers, but traders. Not only did they monopolize
the sea-borne traffic, but they also, in Southern India, dis-
tributed the merchandize thus brought, to the consumer on
land. For instance, when Duarte Pacheco had, in 1504, to
defend Cochin from the attacks of the Samuri and the
Muhamedan traders whom he patronized, one of his first
difficulties was that all the stocks of grain were in the hands
of Muhamedan dealers, who could have caused a famine
had they opposed him. That country does not grow suf-
ficient rice to support its population, and the people only
bought enough to last them for a few weeks' consumption.
These "Moors," as the Portuguese called them, were keen
traders, and, though ready to convert inquirers to their own
faith, they never, in spite of the assertions of the Portuguese
to the contrary, attempted to acquire political independence
save where such independence was essential to the con-
servation of their own community. On the Indian Coast they
found a settled polity and they accepted it. We must come
down late in Indian history to find a state founded by non-
Europeans from over the sea, and then only by Abyssinian
corsairs. The great Muhamedan states of India have been
founded from the inside by armies marching over the land,
not by armies carried by the sea.
1 This is the more remarkable as there is Httle wood on their coasts
suited for shipbuilding. Indian-built ships, manned by Arabs, appear to have
been in use when the Portuguese reached India.
4 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
But while this was the history of the "Moors" in India,
their history in Africa and the further East is different. On
the African Coast they had to deal with savages with no
fixed form of government, and here, like the Phenicians,
they formed independent self-governing colonies, sometimes
almost republican in their institutions; where possible, on an
island, and always in an easily defensible position. Even
with all their precautions an invading horde of negroes
would at times sweep away their settlement. Thus, in 1598,
Kilwa was destroyed when a Muhamedan treacherously
showed the negro leaders a ford. ' In the further East,
where they came in contact with the semi-civilized Malays,
their conduct somewhat approximated to that in India, save
that their proselytizing zeal was greater. In India, where they
met a religion far older than their own, their converts were
mainly from the outcaste population, men to whom the
change from Muhamedanism meant a complete elevation of
their social status. A Poler who could not approach within
a 100 yards 2 of a Nambutri Brahmin, who had to howl like
a wild beast as he walked, to warn all others of his polluted
vicinity, had everything to gain by adopting a faith which
admitted him at once to a social equality with the best in
the land. :i On the Indian Coast, therefore, there were few
converts among those of the higher castes ; among the
Malays, on the other hand, a very large number of the
ruling families, who drew after them the people they go-
verned, adopted the Muhamedan religion.
Malacca, the great emporium of the further East, had
been a dependency of Siam, but late in the 15 th century
1 Couto, XL Ch. 10 and II.
2 Ninety-six steps is the exact distance. — Asiatic Researches, V. p. 5.
3 Later, when the Malabar pirates infested the coast and paid tribute to the
Samuri, the latter (though a Hindu) ordered that a certain number of the
Makkuwar caste should be brought up as Muhamedans. to supply sailors to
the piratical craft. — Pyrard de Laval, Vol. I., p. 389.
INTRODUCTORY 5
it declared its independence. Its air was unwholesome, and
it could not even supply food for its resident population.
The original trading centre was in Singapur, but early in
the 15 th century the defeated party in a civil war in Java
fled to the Muar river, and a few years later these emigrants
settled on the spot, a few miles distant, where Malacca now
stands. For the navigators of that period the prevailing
winds made the voyages from the East and from the West
more expeditious to Malacca than to Singapur. Aided by
this and by the conversion of the colonists to Muhamedan-
ism, the new settlement grew rapidly at the expense of the
old. Malacca was not a trading city in the modern sense
of the word ; it was during the season the site of a vast
fair where the products of China and the extreme East
were bartered for those of the West? There were some
coins of small value current to pay wages and to buy daily
necessaries, but with that exception money was not used;
gold and silver were articles of trade, but the public con-
venience was not consulted by impressing on fixed quantities
any public stamp. At the height of the season the popula-
tion is said to have reached a million. This was perhaps
an exaggeration, and certainly such a number were only
gathered for a very short time. The arrangements for this
multitude were good: each nationality had its own leader,
and free use of the differing religions and customs was al-
lowed to all. ' The administration must have been efficient even
if the standard were low, or such a fair could not have
been held year after year in the territory of a petty prince.
Malacca commanded the narrows between Sumatra and
the Malay Peninsula, in which all the traffic of India and
China was concentrated. Ormuz similarly commanded the
1 Dobbo in the Aru islands must be the nearest modern approach to
Malacca, though falling far short of it in volume of trade. See Wallace's
"Malay Archipelago," Ch. 32.
6 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
narrows through which the trade of the East with Persia,
and through Persia with Europe, had to pass. Ormuz,
including both the island and some territory on the main-
land, was ruled by a Muhamedan dynasty tributary to
Persia. The city was formerly on the mainland, and Marco
Polo saw it there, but at the end of the 13th century it
was, apparently to avoid the attacks of predatory tribes,
moved to the island Jerun. This island had no fresh water
nor any green thing; but its immunity from raids, and its
harbour which allowed ships to lie close to the town, combined
to bring to Ormuz all the sea-borne traffic from India and
the caravan-borne traffic from Aleppo, to break bulk in its
bazaars. The imaginary delights of its arid and sunburnt
shores have inspired the rhapsodies of poets. From Ormuz
Indian wares found their way, in smaller boats more suited
to the navigation, to Basra, where the trade routes divided,
— some caravans started for Trebizond and others for
Aleppo and Damascus. On the shores of the Mediterranean
the goods were purchased by Venetians and Genoese for
distribution over Europe.
Jedda was to the traffic of the East that went through
the Red Sea, what Ormuz was to the Persian Gulf branch.
North of Jedda the navigation of the Red Sea is hampered
by reefs and shoals, and at Jedda the sea-going vessels
stopped, and goods were transferred to smaller boats that
went to Suez. From Suez the merchandize crossed the
desert to Cairo on camels, and thence went down the Nile to
Alexandria, where it was purchased for European consump-
tion chiefly by Venetians. When the operations of the
Portuguese in the Indian Ocean interfered with free navi-
gation, Aden at the mouth of the Red Sea grew at the
expense of Jedda. It was more easy to ship through from
India to Aden and back than to undertake the longer
voyage.
INTRODUCTORY 7
On the Indian Coast, trade was more scattered, and
there was no great emporium. Partly owing to the con-
figuration of the coast line, and partly to the prevailing
winds, most of the lines of traffic ran to points on the
west coast. Chittagong was one of the chief ports in the
Bay of Bengal, but on the west coast there were several
trading centres more important than it. At Calicut, through,
however, no favour of Nature, all the Red Sea merchants
had their factors ; the town is situated on an unbroken
coast line open to the full force of the south-western mon-
soon, and it stands near no navigable river that could bring
the produce from the interior. The ruler of Calicut, the
Samuri, had become the chief of the numerous Nair princi-
palities of Malabar, and the countenance which he consist-
ently showed to the Muhamedan traders brought them to
make Calicut their headquarters, and in turn they helped
him, by the wealth they poured into the country, to retain
his supremacy.
The profits on wares sent from the East to Europe were
enormous to bear the cost of passage through so many
jurisdictions and the expense of so many transhipments.
There has come down to us a detailed statement of the
payments made by merchants trading from India to Alex-
andria, which is full of interest; it refers to a time when
an independent Sultan ruled in Cairo, but under the Ottoman
Turks the payments would certainly not have been smaller.
The Red Sea merchants lived in Jedda and had their fac-
tors in Calicut. The regulations of the Sultan of Cairo
required that one-third of the imports should be pepper,
and this amount must be sold to him in Jedda at Calicut
prices. Say a merchant brought goods from Calicut to the
value there of £300, and among them no pepper. He
would have to buy in Jedda, at Jedda prices, pepper worth
in Calicut £100, and resell it to the Sultan at the Calicut
8 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
price. On the balance of the goods he would pay 10 per
cent, ad valorem, and again on the balance after deducting
this ten per cent., four per cent. more. Instead, however,
of getting the Calicut price of the pepper in money, he
was compelled to take copper in Jedda from the Sultan
at Calicut prices, — that is, copper in Jedda was worth 7
cruzados the quintal, but this he was compelled to buy at
12 cruzados, the Calicut price. Practically, therefore, the
Sultan of Cairo was, at no expense to himself, a partner
to the extent of one-third in every voyage. In spite of
these exactions the profits on the double journey would
be very large indeed.
To continue, however, with the goods to Europe. Brought
to Suez in smaller boats from Jedda, the importer had to
pay 5 per cent, ad valorem in ready money ; and to supply
this money there were banks at Suez prepared to cash
drafts. The journey to Cairo took three days ; and a camel
to carry about 450 lbs. cost about 2>7 S 6d. A mile out of
Cairo the goods were registered. The value of pepper in
the Cairo market was about 20d the pound, and a mer-
chant buying pepper had to buy an amount equal to one-
third of his purchases in the open market, from the Sultan
at 25 per cent, over the market value, and, in addition,
pay 5 per cent, as customs on all his purchases. From
Cairo the goods were taken down the Nile in boats, and
were carried from the river to Alexandria on camels.
At Alexandria they were registered again, and buyer
and seller had each to pay 5 per cent, ad valorem. The
shipper had also to pay 5 per cent, to frank him across
the sea. '
On the African Coast the natives were mere savages, with
Arab settlements dotted at intervals. Abyssinia did not
1 See Castanlieda, II. 75. Barros, I. 8. I.
INTRODUCTORY 9
touch the sea coast, but though the government of Masso-
wah was in the hands of Muhamedans, the King of Abys-
sinia had, when powerful, some influence over it. In Egypt
there reigned, at the end of the 15th century, the last of
the independent Mamluk Sultans, El Ashraf Kansuh el
Ghori, whose sway extended over part of Syria to the
north, and to the Euphrates on the east. On the west
coast of the Red Sea he held Suakin, and as much to the
south as his arms commanded. On the east of that sea,
and indeed over the whole of Arabia there were several
semi-independent chieftains whose relations to their suzer-
ain the Sultan of Egypt and to each other were continually
varying. Of these the more important were the Sharif
Barakat of Mecca and Amir ibn Abdu-1-wahab, who ruled
over Yemen.
Speaking generally, the Sultan of Egypt was the over-
lord of the western shores of the Persian Gulf, and the
Shah of Persia of the eastern. Between Jask and the Indus
stretched a coast that was a no-man's land, where from
early times pirates made their home. In India, Guzerat was
the first maritime state of any importance ; it had one port,
Diu, of very considerable trade and many others of less
importance. Guzerat had separated from Delhi in 1408;
from 1459 to 15 1 1 the reigning prince was Sultan Mahmud
Bigarha, the
Prince of Cambay whose daily food
Is asp, basilisk and toad
of our poet Butler. Between Guzerat and the Hindu state
of Vijayanagara, that began just south of Goa, lay the
states, that had sprung up about 1480 on the dissolution
of the kingdom founded by Alau-d-din Bahmani at Kulbarga.
They were (1) the Imad Khani of Berar: (2) The Barid
Shahi of Bidar: (3) The Nizam Shahi of Ahmadnagar: (4)
The Adil Shahi of Bijapur. The Portuguese were chiefly
io THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
brought into contact with the two last as they alone held
the coast line. South of these Muhamedan states lay the
great Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagara, whose capital was
at Vijayanagara on the Tungabudra river. On the western
side the Raja's coast line only extended from a point a
little south of Goa to another just north of Cananor, but
on the east nearly the whole littoral from just north of
Cape Comorin to the Kistna river was either directly his
or held by his tributaries.
South of Vijayanagara on the west coast were the numerous
Malabar states. The Samuri who ruled in Calicut was the
chief. Over Cananor and the states to the north his suze-
rainty was little more than nominal, but over Cochin and
the southern states, where pepper was produced and through
which it passed, it was very real. The cardinal fact of
Malabar politics, and one of which the Portuguese cleverly
availed themselves, was the rivalry between the Samuri of
Calicut and the Raja of Cochin. In the 9th century the
Perumal who ruled in Cranganor over the whole of Malabar,
became a Muhamedan, went to Arabia and died there. He
had, before he left, divided up his country among the
several chiefs, and of these the Raja of Cochin was, at the
end of the 15th century, his direct representative, and in
his capital, Cochin, there was preserved the sacred stone
at which certain ceremonies had to be performed before
sovereign rights could be claimed over the southern princi-
palities. The position, however, of the Raja of Cochin had
become quite subordinate; he was periodically displaced
and re-invested by the Samuri, and he could neither coin
money nor even roof his house with tiles. ' Both the states
of Calicut and Cochin retained at that time customs which
pointed back to a very great antiquity. In the reigning
1 Dtuurte Barbosa, p. 156.
INTRODUCTORY n
families of both the head was a priest in a temple, and the
next in succession was the ruling chief. In Calicut also
there was held that festival, every 12 years, at which if
any one member of certain families could kill the reigning
Samuri he became chief in his place. ' Quilon (Koulam),
south of Cochin, was a dependency of Travancore and both
were included in Malabar. Of all the ports on the Malabar
coast Cochin was by far the best, though it was com-
paratively modern, as the island ofVaipeenhad been thrown
up after a great land flood in 1341 A.D. Owing to shoal
water for some distance from the shores, it is unsuited to
modern ocean-going steamers, but for the vessels of those
days the depth was sufficient. Once over the bar, a series
of magnificent salt-water lagoons and creeks connected
Cochin with all the pepper-producing districts.
The structure of society in Malabar was highly arti-
ficial. The ruling and military race was the Nair caste,
who, like all the inhabitants of Malabar except the Brahmins,
ranked socially as Sudras, the lowest of the four great
divisions, because they were converts and not Hindus born.
The priests were Brahmins, the descendants of the mission-
aries who had carried Hinduism to the south. The Nairs
subsisted on the industry of those still lower in the scale.
A Nair might approach, but not touch a Brahmin ; but the
lower castes could only come within shouting distance of
his sacred presence. The Nairs practised polyandry, and
consequently the sons of sisters, as their relationship was
certain on one side at least, inherited. 3 The great feature
of the Nair character was fidelity to an employer, and
1 For the explanation of this custom see Frazer's " Golden Bough ", Vol. I. p.
225. A similar custom obtained in Sumatra and Bengal, though in these
places it was not so formal; the chief might be killed at any time, though
only by men of certain families.
2 In Europe as late as the early Middle Ages the relation of a man to
his sister's son was looked on as a specially sacred tie.
12 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
advantage was taken of this to employ them as Jangadas, '
both as guides on a journey and to guard property. The
Portuguese had, for instance, a jangada for each of their
forts in Malabar. It was the duty of the jangada to defend
anything entrusted to him with his life, and it was a serious
matter to kill him, as it involved a blood feud with all his
relatives. Instances are very frequent of the great trouble
that resulted when owing to any cause the Nairs shaved
their heads and devoted themselves to death. 2
When the Portuguese first went to India any general
combination against them was impossible ; Hindus and
Muhamedans were engaged in a death-struggle over the
great kingdom of Vijayanagara, and both looked on the
intruding Portuguese as unclean corsairs who were unworthy
of serious attention. When later the Portuguese had acquired
a footing in the country, and the battle of Talikot in 1565
had extinguished the last important Hindu state outside
Malabar, the Muhamedans in 1570 — 78 made a combined
attack on the Portuguese. That failed, and soon after the
increasing pressure of the English and Dutch from the sea,
and of the Emperors of Delhi from the north, left no leisure
for further combination.
The Portuguese were never opposed to any of the races
who now furnish the recruits for the Indian fighting army,
nor did their rule ever extend a day's march from their
ships. Their power therefore was essentially dependent
upon their predominance at sea; they were never in a posi-
tion to assume the offensive on shore, and they were strictly
limited to defending their factories and forts, when menaced.
Owing to certain moral defects of which more will be said
hereafter, the race had no power of combined action, and
1 In Malayalam, Channadam. See Yule Glossary t.v.
- The Nairs are mow one of the most progressive races in India.
INTRODUCTORY 13
consequently no administrative faculty. The history of its
connection with India is thus a series of episodes, interest-
ing as revelations of character and social life, but showing
few possibilities of organic growth. There is no machinery
of government to be explained, for it is of little use to
investigate orders that were only obeyed as far as it was
convenient, and which were disregarded when they became
irksome.
At the outset there were some grounds for hope that
the bold attempt of the Portuguese to found an empire at
a distance of more than half a year's voyage from their
homes, might be successful. Albuquerque, great as a soldier,
for he could repair defeat as well as organize victory, also
showed high qualities as a governor. Afonso Mexia, 10
years later, and Simao Botelho, 20 years after him, are
examples of that official class which is the backbone of
efficient civil administration; and had they been samples of
a body of government servants rather than isolated indivi-
duals, they would have done much to render the Portuguese
power permanent. Unfortunately for Portugal, she fell under
the grip of religious superstition at the very time when her
vital energies, sapped by the disappearance of a vigorous
body of aristocratic leaders, required renewal and not re-
pression. It was the final blow when she passed under the
dominion of Spain. The actual tragedy of the story, when
the gallant little country of Portugal, her life-blood drained
by her efforts in the East and the West, fell an easy vic-
tim first to the reaction of Southern Europe against the
religious movements of the North, and then to the temporal
despotism of her powerful neighbour Spain, falls outside
the limits of this volume ; but it is necessary to make some
reference to this important political catastrophe in order to
group and explain the events which will form the subject
of my narrative.
CHAPTER II
The Portuguese — Malabar
The Portuguese. — The Portuguese nation was moulded
in a hard school. Until the end of the nth century its
history was that of the rest of the Spanish Peninsula.
Peopled originally by Celts, it had been thoroughly in-
corporated with the Roman Empire, but its subsequent
history so far differed from that of Spain that the wave of
invading Visigoths had spent some of its force before the
Western Ocean was reached, and its nobility rarely claim
Gothic descent. With the rest of the Peninsula it was
subdued by the Moors in the 8th century. Its existence as
a separate entity began in 1095 A.D., when Count Henry
of Burgundy was given the County of Portugal as the
dowry of his wife Theresa. The limits of the new county
comprised, however, only the districts of Coimbra and
Oporto, which within the preceding 100 years had been
won back from the Moors by dint of hard fighting. This
contest had not been carried on by the original inhabitants,
the Celts, but by armies recruited from the north, and the
first Count of the new county was himself a French Knight.
In the struggle with the Moors that occupied the next
two and a half centuries, the leaders, in the absence of a
native nobility, were the flower of northern chivalry. The
armies, too, were at first recruited by northern crusading
soldiers, and it was not until some years had elapsed that
the native inhabitants of either the cities or the country
THE PORTUGUESE 15
were swept into the general movement. By the middle of
the 13th century, however, when the Muhamedan Wars on
Portuguese soil ceased, the effects of the long struggle had
penetrated to all classes, the towns emerged with municipal
institutions, and the people had, through the Cortes, some
voice in the government of the country. Still a large
share of the soil was owned by the great military orders
of foreign knights, the price that had to be paid for their
assistance. Early in the 14th century the connection of the
knights with foreign orders was severed, and they themselves
remained to form the nucleus of an aristocracy, northern in
blood, but Portuguese by residence. In the civil troubles at the
end of that century, which shook the foundations of the mon-
archy, the aristocracy and the people were found united, and
in 1385 they fought side by side at the Battle of Aljubarotta.
For the next 100 years the history of Portugal is the
history of the strenuous effort to discover the sea-route to
the East, and the leading figure is Prince Henry of Portugal,
named the Navigator, son of King John I of Portugal, and
great-grandson of King Edward III of England. Early in
the 15th century he settled at Sagres, and from that date
till his death in 1460 he sent out annual expeditions that
explored painfully the African coast. He found nothing
ready to his hand. His vessels were half-decked boats,
his men long-shore sailors who would not or could not
navigate out of sight of land. The assistance of mathema-
ticians and astronomers, often Jews, was called in and a school
of navigators formed. Cape Boyador, on the African coast,
1,000 miles from Portugal, was not passed until 1434, for
years before expedition after expedition had been turned
back by the terrors of a shoal that stretched out to sea,
over which the water foamed and boiled. ' Into the history
1 For the terrors of Cape Boyador see Barros, I. 1. 2.
1 6 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
of this century, during which, from such commencements,
were moulded the explorers who discovered half the world,
it is not necessary to enter. l
By the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1487, by
Bartholomew Dias, that route to the East for which the
King of Portugal and Prince Henry had been so long
seeking, was at length opened. In these explorations the
leaders of the Portuguese nation were following a truly
national policy ; their aims were chiefly commercial. The
Italian republics had for many generations been enriched
by the trade with the East, and beyond the Italian mer-
chants lay the Muhamedan merchants. The discovery of
a sea-route to India promised to transfer the profits of
both to the Portuguese, — that, in so doing, the hated
Muhamedan would suffer, was an added incentive. They
hoped also to discover an ally in a Christian prince whose
territory they located vaguely in Africa, — a powerful and
mysterious potentate known as Prester John. The first object
was therefore commercial — the injury to their hereditary
foe, the Muhamedan, supplied an undercurrent of crusading
interest. An age, however, in which the spiritual head of
the Christian Church, the Pope himself, was in treaty with
the Sultan of Turkey as to the terms on which he (the
Pope) should murder the latter's brother, ■ could not have
been one in which religious aims took a very prominent
position. The genius of Albuquerque brought to the front
the question of empire, but in his mind empire and commerce
went hand in hand ; he supplied no new aim, he merely
pointed out a new method of attaining an old object.
King John II (1481 — 95) during his short but illustrious
1 The last word for the present has been said in Major's -Prince Henry
the Navigator."
• Charles VIII of France captured the correspondence on this subject
between Pope Alexander VI and Sultan Bayazid 11.
THE PORTUGUESE 17
reign, had been, to use the simile of Barros, roaring
round Africa like a famished lion seeking an entrance to
a guarded enclosure. He continued the sea exploration
begun by his uncle, and he also sent out land expeditions,
one of which penetrated to Timbuctoo, while another ex-
plored overland the Indian Ocean and its trade routes. At
home he broke the power of the feudal aristocracy, with
the result that the crown in Portugal became despotic, and
there was set free a reserve of energy that would have
otherwise been spent in domestic intrigue and violence.
The power thus released supplied the leaders that, within
50 years of his death, carried the Portuguese to the re-
motest corners of the earth and brought that nation
to the summit of its glory. This aristocracy, as has been
already said, was foreign in its origin, and there is nothing
to show that the waste of such a body in an adventurous
career could be made good from a lower stratum of the
people.
Prince Henry encouraged his Captains to bring home
specimens of the natives of the countries they discovered,
partly as valuable merchandize, and partly to open com-
munication with new tribes by learning the different
dialects. It became a settled policy to promote marriages
between these captives and the people of Portugal, this
was the first step in a path that has led to very important
results, and it is hard to overestimate the importance to
the nation of this development. The Portuguese have shown
an alacrity not found in other European nations, to mix
their race with others differing entirely in status from
themselves.
Emmanuel, ' who succeeded John II, was well surnamed
the Fortunate. He succeeded to the results of the efforts
1 Usually called Manoel.
i8 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
of his predecessors, and he found ready to his hands the
instruments they had formed ; even the preparations for the
expedition of Vasco da Gama were well advanced. As one
of his first acts showed, Emmanuel had no personal qualifica-
tions that fitted him for the great part he was called on to
play. The Portuguese Jews were among the most renowned
in Europe; the whole machinery of the commerce of the
country was in their hands, and they were foremost in intel-
ligence and commercial probity. In order to gain the hand
of the Infanta of Spain, Emmanuel, at the bidding of
Ferdinand and Isabella, decreed their expulsion. Emmanuel
married the Infanta in 1497, but he never won the prize
that allured him, for he never sat on the throne of Spain.
Some Jews, to escape the edict, became Christians, but they
had little reason to rejoice at their apostacy when a few
years later they were harried by the bigotry of the Roman
Catholic Church. One result of the expatriation of the
Jews was immediate, for when, by the newly discovered
route, the riches of the East poured into the capital of
Portugal, there was no machinery to distribute them over
Europe; foreign merchants had to come to Lisbon to make
their purchases. When, owing to the Spanish war at the
end of the 16th century, the English and Dutch, debarred
access to this market, went to the East to buy spices for
themselves, the course of trade was the more easily diverted
as there was no skeleton of custom formed out of existing
trade routes to retard the decay of Portugal.
In his treatment of his great subordinate, Albuquerque,
Emmanuel showed how unfit he was to be the ruler of men :
we have not the King's orders, but seen in the reflection
of Albuquerque's replies they were filled with a petty carp-
ing criticism — a constant demand for money, that goaded
the recipient almost to madness. Conscious of his own
entire devotion to the interests of his King and his splendid
THE PORTUGUESE 19
services to his country, it irritated Albuquerque beyond
endurance to have to reply to every tale-bearer who, whether
from resentment or malice, sent a letter of malevolent gos-
sip to the King. ' " But there are men here, Portuguese
" whom your Highness credits. . . If I were a trusted Cap-
"tain I would build their heads into Calicut fort, but I
"have no such credit with your Highness, and they are
" believed." Albuquerque's reward was to die of a broken
heart. Whatever may have been the defects of the Por-
tuguese in India, their prestige there must have been ended
by the defects of their governors in Europe. Suspicion from
beginning to end was the groundwork of their conduct,
"The Portuguese prefer that their own deeds should be
"forgotten rather than those of their neighbours praised,"
is the comment of their best-known historian. 2 Albu-
querque says much the same. 3 " Were our emulation to
" lead us to try and serve you, the one as well as the
"other, such emulation would be virtue, but that which now
" obtains here is to try and get a footing with your Royal
"Highness through the defects of others; we rejoice at the
"mistakes of others and at their disasters, and even we
"strive to make others commit errors to give ground for
"accusation against them." Every home-going ship was
laden with slanderous letters until in the din it was impos-
sible to say who was right and who was wrong. Even
the most flagrant derelictions of duty remained unnoticed;
1 Cartas, p. 137; see also pp. 156 to 177. On p. 304 he says, under date
October 25th, 15 14, that he had not received one word of acknowledg-
ment for the capture of Malacca three years before.
2 Barros, II. 5. 11.
3 Cartas, p. 32. The story of the stone on which Albuquerque inscribed
the names of those who distinguished themselves at the capture of Ma-
lacca, which caused such heartburning that he turned it face inwards and
carved on the new surface " The stone which the builders rejected," is
another illustration. — Commentaries, III. 137.
2o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
no fidalgo could be punished in India; in Portugal it was
as easy to show that the charge was trumped up through
enmity as it was to take away the character of an opponent
by a libel behind his back. Not only did the Portuguese
lose all dread of punishment for any misdeed, but the na-
tives of India lost all belief they might ever have had in
Portuguese justice.
Whatever the Portuguese were in Europe, once in the
East there was nothing to improve their character or soften
their defects. There may have been some exceptions, but
the only women with whom they could associate were
either those of that low stamp who would willingly, or
those of higher standing who, degraded by force, were
compelled to associate with the new comers from Europe.
In the last half of the 16th century it became the custom
to send out annually poor, well-born orphans, dowered by
the King of Portugal, but it was many years before a
respectable Portuguese woman was found who had penetrated
beyond the Western Islands. Life on board ship was
impossible to any woman with self-respect, and as late as
his third voyage to India, in 1524, Da Gama whipped pub-
licly in Goa three Portuguese women who, contrary to t his
orders, had come out in the ships. It was noted as without
precedent that Jorge Cabral, the governor in 1549 — 1550,
had his wife, a Portuguese lady, with him.
The early voyages swept away nearly all superna-
tural terrors, and when there remained only the material
danger of shipwreck and the material discomforts of the
squalor and filth of board-ship life to put against the
possibility of wealth, the voyage to the East ceased to
have any bracing effect on the mind. The same may be
said of the enemies they had to meet on land. Duarte
Pacheco and Albuquerque showed how vastly superior the
European arms and organization were to those of the East,
THE PORTUGUESE 21
and after that demonstration fighting involved a certain
physical fatigue, but, when properly conducted, little danger.
The religion which recognised . Alexander Borgia as its
head differed in all respects from that which bears the
same name at the present day. A papal bull divided three-
fourths of the globe between the half-savage Spaniards
and the half-savage Portuguese ; the interpretation of this
bull, as accepted by the Portuguese, is to be found in the
pages of the official historian, Barros. l According to him
the Pope is empowered to distribute to the faithful all lands
in the possession of the followers of alien laws. "It is true,"
he says, "that there does exist a common right to all to
" navigate the seas, and in Europe we acknowledge the rights
" which others hold against us, but this right does not extend
"beyond Europe, 2 and therefore the Portuguese as lords of
"the sea by the strength of their fleets are justified in com-
" pelling all Moors and Gentiles to take out safe-conducts
"under pain of confiscation and death. The Moors and
" Gentiles are outside the law of Jesus Christ, which is the
" true law that everyone has to keep under pain of damna-
tion to eternal fire. If then the soul be so condemned,
"what right has the body to the privileges of our laws?
"It is true," he adds, with a charitable candour, "they are
" reasoning beings, and might if they lived be converted to
"the true faith, but inasmuch as they have not shown any
"desire as yet to accept this, we Christians have no duties
"towards them."
Had these been merely the opinions of a studious
pedant they would have deserved no attention, but if they
were not actually put forward by the head of the Christian
1 Barros, I. 6. 1.
2 The modern version runs, "And there's never a law of God or man
runs north of 53."
22 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Church, they afford an interpretation of its orders that
was never repudiated and which indeed logically follows
from its words. These doctrines which have destroyed
whole tribes and nations and have affected the lives and
happiness of millions, have been used to justify the most
insatiable cupidity and the most atrocious barbarities. A
few instances may explain the effect on the Portuguese
mind of these theories.
In 1524 it was a surprise to them that Muhamedans
should take revenge by killing off their outlying parties,
for "up to now the Portuguese have considered that the
"Moors should abide by a peace, and that they need not." 1
Cruelties were not confined to the baser sort, but were
deliberately adopted as a line of terrorizing policy by Vasco
da Gama, Almeida and Albuquerque, to take no mean
examples. Da Gama tortured helpless fishermen : Almeida
tore out the eyes of a Nair who had come in with a promise
of his life, because he suspected a design on his own life : "
Albuquerque cut off the noses of the women and the hands
of the men who fell into his power on the Arabian coast.
To follow the example of Almeida and sail into an Indian
harbour with the corpses of unfortunates, often not fighting
men, dangling from the yards, was to proclaim yourself
a determined fellow. So deeply had the degraded teaching
sunk into the minds of the Portuguese that there is every
reason to believe that horrible as the cruelties were which
Vasco da Gama committed on his second visit to Calicut
in 1502, Correa, the historian, deliberately exaggerated them,
not to excite pity, but to invest his hero with fresh glories.
This same spirit roused the fierce denunciations of the
letters of St. Francis Xavier. In a private letter of March
» Castanheda, VI. 48.
2 Ibid., II. 28.
THE PORTUGUESE 23
24th, 1544, he wrote — "They" (the Portuguese) " seem to
" think it an insult and an injury to them if any one dares
" to open his mouth while they are trampling on rights of
" all kinds . . . There would be more to excuse the aggression
" if they denied us justice ; but what plausible excuse can
" we plead now when they undertake to do justice with
"the utmost faithfulness, observe exactly all the conditions
" of the alliance, and when they keep the peace and deal
"with all the equity we could desire in their intercourse
"with us." 1 And again, writing to a brother Jesuit in
Europe, on Jan. 22nd, 1545, — "Do not allow any of your
"friends to be sent to India with the charge of looking
" after the finances and affairs of the King. To such persons
11 we may most truly apply which is written — ' Let them be
" blotted out of the book of the living, and let their name
"be not written among the just.' However great may be
"your confidence in one you know and love, trust my
" experience and oppose him on this point, and fight to
"the last to prevent him from being exposed to the greatest
" of dangers .... There is here a power which I may call
"irresistible, to thrust men headlong into the abyss, where
"besides the seductions of gain, and the easy opportunities
" of plunder, their appetites for greed will be sharpened by
" having tasted it, and there will be a whole torrent of low
"examples and evil customs to overwhelm them and sweep
" them away. Robbery is so public and common that it
"hurts no-one's character and is hardly counted a fault:
" people scarcely hesitate to think that what is done with
"impunity, it cannot be bad to do. Everywhere and at
" all times, it is rapine, hoarding and robbery. No one
" thinks of making restitution of what he has once taken.
"The devices by which men steal, the various pretexts
1 Life, Vol. I. page 193.
24 THE RISE OE PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
"under which it is done, who can count? I never cease
" wondering at the number of new inflections, which, in
"addition to all the usual forms, have been added in this
" new lingo of avarice to the conjugation of that ill-omened
"verb 'to rob'." »
With the end of the 15 th century the complete break-up
of the mediaeval social system had advanced far. The
authority which for some centuries had governed politics,
and that which for even a longer time had governed religion
had alike lost their influence. In Portugal the renaissance
came late and left early, and the geographical discoveries
that nation made, synchronized with the brief period of liberty
she had enjoyed when relieved from mediaeval sterility she
had not fallen under the numbing influence of the Jesuits
and the Inquisition. Cut off from the rest of Europe by
Spain, she had no contact with the more bracing civiliza-
tions of the North, nor even with that of Italy. Her one
outlet was the sea. For a century, speaking roughly, from
1450 to 1550, she ruled the seas of more than half the
then known world. Then for another half-century her so-
vereignty continued in name, but the influence that guided
her actions and galvanized her declining strength was not
that of the Portuguese people, dwindling in number and
mixed in blood, nor of its leaders who had degenerated
till they could no longer lead, but that of ecclesiastics who
wielded an open and often insolent control to attain the
selfish aims of their own Church. At the first challenge
her dominion fell without a struggle.
The causes of this fall are partly physical and partly
moral, and the two are so intermixed that they can only
with difficulty be separated. The most obvious of the
physical causes was the small size of Portugal, which was
1 Life, Vol. I. p. 227. Couto, V. 8. 5, traces the deterioration of his time
to the canonical lawyers.
MALABAR 25
unable to supply sufficient population to stand the drain of
both Brazil and the East. The drain in the East was
increased by the ignorance of the elementary laws of health
and the consequent excessive mortality. Among the causes
partly moral, was the deterioration in the Portuguese race
caused by intermarriage with native races. From this in-
termarriage two results stand out prominent, — a loss of
vigour and a loss of prestige. Among the moral causes,
one of the most potent was the adoption of Oriental methods
of diplomacy which placed Eastern and Western on the same
plane, and in an intrigue the Eastern won ; while another
was that ingrained suspicion and distrust of each other
already referred to.
Malabar. — Civilization, in that part of the western coast
of India first touched at by the Portuguese, had reached a
high level. It was not a very progressive civilization, but
it ensured personal security, it admitted the toleration of
hostile creeds and it allowed great freedom in mercantile
transactions. The evidence of the author of the Tahafatu-1-
Mujahidin, himself a Muhamedan, writing in the latter half
of the 1 6th century, is valuable. He says, of course, that the
prosperity of the towns was much increased by the activity
of the Muhamedans, but he goes on to point out that the
Hindu rulers abstained from all oppression and, although
they and their armies were pagans, paid every consideration
to the prejudices and customs of the Muhamedans, and
that, although the latter did not number one-tenth of the
population. In deference to them Friday was respected
throughout Malabar, a death-sentence on a follower of their
religion was never carried out without their consent, and
converts to their faith were not molested. ' In the conveniences
1 Tahafatu-1-Mujahidm, p. 71. The whole passage is valuable, but too long
to quote.
26 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
of life the Indians were certainly behind the Europeans.
To this day the words in common use in the bazaars
of Agra and Delhi, to which their political influence
never extended, show how many articles of this class the
Portuguese introduced.
In 1442, 56 years before Da Gama reached it, Abdu-r-razak
visited Calicut. As a Persian and a Muhamedan he hated the
place, and he appears too to have been treated with scant
ceremony by the Samuri. His description, in spite of all, is
pleasant reading, and a good corrective to the continued abuse
of the Portuguese. " The town is inhabited by infidels and
"situated on a hostile shore. It contains a number of Mu-
"hamedans who are constant residents, who have built two
" mosques and meet every Friday to offer up prayer . . .
" Security and justice are so firmly established in this city
"that the most wealthy merchants bring thither from maritime
"countries considerable cargoes, which they unload, and un-
hesitatingly send to the markets and the bazaars, without
" thinking in the meantime of any necessity of checking the
" accounts or keeping watch over the goods. The officers
"of the custom-house take upon themselves the charge of
" looking after the merchandize, over which they keep watch
" night and day. When a sale is effected they make on
"them a charge of one-fortieth part; if they are not sold they
" make no charge on them whatsoever . . . But in Calicut,
"every ship, whatever place it may come from or whereso-
" ever it may be bound, when it puts into this port is treated
" like other vessels, and has no trouble of any kind to put
" up with." '
Varthema, the Italian who visited Calicut in 1505, has
much the same to say. s He especially praises the admini-
1 India in the 13th Century, p. 13.
" Varthema, p. 168.
MALABAR 27
stration of justice and the probity of the merchants, — this,
too, in spite of traces in his book that he wrote with an
eye to pleasing his Portuguese patrons. Pyrard de Laval,
was there in 1607; he was much struck by the universal
hatred with which the Portuguese were regarded and the
high grade of civilization to which Calicut had attained in
spite of a century of desolating war. "There is no place
"in all India where contentment is more universal than at
" Calicut, both on account of the fertility and beauty of
"the country and of the intercourse with the men of all
" religions who live there in free exercise of their own
"religion." ' "It is the busiest and the most full of all
" traffic and commerce in the whole of India ; it has mer-
chants from all parts of the world, and of all nations and
" religions, by reason of the liberty and security accorded to
"them there; for the king permits the exercise of every
" kind of religion, and yet it is strictly forbidden to talk,
"dispute, or quarrel on that subject." 2 "As for justice it
"proceeds from the King alone, and throughout all his
"kingdom there is no other judge but he. For all that,
"justice is well administered, and awarded to all gratu-
itously." a Pyrard de Laval may be considered a prejudiced
witness, as he was kidnapped from Calicut by a half-caste
Portuguese and thrown into a filthy dungeon in Cochin,
from which he barely escaped with his life. Still, the
combined testimony of a Persian, an Italian and a French-
man is irresistible. The Indians of that day were more
civilized than the Portuguese. 4
In nothing was their relative civilization more shown
1 Pyrard de Laval, Vol. I. p. 366.
2 Ibid. p. 404.
3 Ibid. p. 407.
4 Several traditional instances of the Samuri's honesty will be found in
Logan, Vol. I. p. 278.
28 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
than in their treatment of prisoners of war. The Portuguese
killed with the most horrible tortures or enslaved all prisoners
whom they could not hold to ransom. They even flung the
dead bodies of their captives on the shore and watched them
to extort a ransom from any one who showed any interest in
the corpse. l On the other hand, the Portuguese who were
captured were in the early days treated with the greatest
humanity. Malik Aiyaz, one of their bitterest opponents,
wrote to Almeida that while the fight was in progress it
was the duty of either side to do all they could to
conquer the enemy, but once the enemy was conquered he
must be treated as a brother; and, what is more, he practised
as he wrote, for he treated his Portuguese captives with
the greatest kindness, and after the defeat of D. Lourenco
at Chaul he sought for his adversary's body to give it
decent burial. 2 Things changed somewhat in later days
when the natives of India had been educated by their
Christian adversaries, still as late as 1559, when St. Thome
was held to ransom for the intolerant acts of some Jesuits
and Franciscans, the Raja of Vijayanagara kept such faith
with the Portuguese that, as one of them says, such humanity
and justice are not to be found among Christians. 3
There are traces that the better side of the Indian nature
struck the more savage Portuguese with astonishment. Two
pictures may be given from one voyage of Martim Correa
up the coast in 1521, of which it was said, as it was of
many others, that it was an unnecessary expedition, as the
people they robbed were but poor people who neither
followed the sea nor did evil to any one. 4 Landing at one
place, Correa marched up country with 25 men till he came
1 Correa, III. 835.
" Barros, II. 2. 9.
3 Couto, VII. 7. I.
4 Correa, II. p. 681. The anecdotes are from Castsnheda, VI. <'h. 2 & j.
MALABAR 29
to a large country-house with courtyards and gardens, and
many poor, both men and women, sitting round. Seeing the
Portuguese, a man accosted them courteously, who was the
almoner of a wealthy Muhamedan gentleman who lived
there retired from the world and who spent his money in
almsgiving. Presently the owner himself came out and
treated them with hospitality. When a friendly understanding
had been arrived at, Correa had the curiosity and the
naivety to ask him why he gave alms and what satisfaction
he could get from it. A little later, among the captives
Correa took, was an old man past work, who offered £$
for his liberty, and asked that as he had no friend he
might be allowed to fetch the money himself. Correa, more
in jest than earnest, gave him his liberty and made him
swear on his sacred cord, for he was a Brahmin, to bring
the money back. A few days later, to the amazement of
the Portuguese, the old Brahmin returned with half the
money and eight fowls in lieu of the rest — all that he had
been able to scrape together. To the credit of the Portuguese
they refused to take anything from him. '
It is undoubted that in many cases the Portuguese were
murdered on shore, but these murders were the outcome
of a sudden riot, and in no case do we hear of any torture.
The Portuguese were intruders who, in order to establish
their own trade, had to break down the Muhamedan monopoly;
and before the conditions of the country were properly
understood, they were content to leave factors unprotected,
trusting to the power of the native government. They
were, however, completely ignorant of the religious and
social systems with which they were brought in contact, and
they made no attempt to understand them.
In 1498 Vasco da Gama and his men landed with the
1 They gave him a certificate — the chit of the modern Anglo-Indian.
30 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
idea that all Indians save the Muhamedans were Christians,
and they actually in this belief worshipped in a Hindu
pagoda near Calicut; ' and so little did he and his party
learn of the facts, that the sailing orders of Pedro Alvarez
Cabral were drawn up, after Da Gama's return, in the
same belief, though it was recognised that these Christians
wanted " teaching." " Pedro Alvarez Cabral brought back
the fishermen whom Da Gama had kidnapped transformed
into Christians, and sent them as envoys to the Samuri ;
he was ignorant that so polluted were they by their birth
that the King could not even look on them. This same
commander considered it a personal insult that the Samuri
should have asked that the Nair hostages should be allowed
on shore from the ships to eat, else they would be starved. :<
In 1504 Duarte Pacheco, who had been some time in the
country, almost quarrelled with his faithful ally the Raja
of Cochin when he said he was unable to make some low
caste men Nairs. Andrade, in his life of D. Joao de Castro,
written after the Portuguese had been settled many years
in India, speaks of D. Joao as having sprinkled the Muha-
medan mosques with cows' blood, — an animal they worship
with abominable rites as the depositary of their souls!
Couto's sixth decade, written after the Portuguese had been
a 100 years in the country, by a man who was exception-
ally well informed and who had lived many years in Goa,
states that one of the assaults on Diu was led by a banner
on which was painted a likeness of Muhamad horrible to
see. 4 It is a well-known fact that the Muhamedan religion
1 This fact is well attested. The author of the Roteiro thought the frescoes
of the saints rather unusual. For many years Brahmins occasionally worshipped
the images in Christian churches. — Castanheda, III. 130.
- An. Mar. e Col., series 5, p. 208.
3 Castanheda, I. 35. The Samuri was of course referring to a strict
caste rule.
« Couto, VI. 2. 5.
MALABAR 31
does not allow any representation of the human face to
be made.
These examples of blunders . are given to show how
impossible it was for the Portuguese with their ignorance
of the language — an ignorance which continued until a
late period — and their habits which offended every prejudice,
to avoid unintentionally alienating those with whom they
came in contact in the new country. The Hindus were
ignorant of the real power that lay behind the few vessels
they could see ; the Muhamedans had been with them for
generations, or rather centuries, and their natural sympathies
would lie with these and not with the unknown and unclean
strangers. When therefore the Muhamedans determined
on an active policy their decision met with no opposition
from the Hindus.
Vasco da Gama was baffled in his endeavour to open
trade with Calicut, but he met with no greater difficulties
than were usually experienced at the first visit of ships to
unknown ports. In some respects he received extraordinary
civility; the Samuri transported his goods free of expense
from the ships to Calicut ; the personal indignities which
he met with at the hands of subordinates have been grossly
exaggerated, and it is clear from his conduct at the time,
that Da Gama did not regard them in the serious light in
which later writers have tried to place them. The line of
conduct adopted on the west coast of Africa was not well
chosen for the old-established civilizations of India, and Da
Gama's own haughty and overbearing temper quite unfitted
him to be a diplomat. The mingled sluggishness and
ineptitude of Pedro Alvarez Cabral resulted in the murder
of Aires Correa and his followers, and the breach with the
Samuri became almost irreparable. There can be no ques-
tion but that the Muhamedans took to the full advantage
of the openings the ignorance and incapacity of the Portu-
32 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
guese gave them ; more than this can hardly be said. The
murder of Aires Correa in 1500 was preceded by acts of
very gross provocation on the part of the Portuguese, and
the subsequent discovery of Cochin with its harbour and
its rivalry with Calicut, took away from the new comers
all desire of a reconciliation with the Samuri.
CHAPTER III
Arms and Methods of Warfare —Voyages— Piracy
Land Journeys
Arms and Method of Warfare. — In arms and methods
of warfare the Hindu of the extreme south where the
Muhamedans had not yet penetrated, was far behind his
contemporary in Europe. " Hindus in India fight more with
their tongues than their hands" is the contemptuous remark
of a contemporary writer who had himself trailed a pike. l
Chiefly, perhaps, because they had then met no serious
enemy and had only fought their own caste fellows and
coreligionists, war had become with them a game governed
by a series of elaborate rules, and to break one of these
rules involved dishonour, which was worse than death. -
Their arms were lances, swords and shields, and much taste
was displayed in lacquering and polishing, till neither sun
nor rain affected them and they glittered " like a looking-
-glass." The swords were of iron, not steel, some curved,
some short and round, the point was never used ; from the
handle about one-third of the length was strengthened by
an extra backing of iron ; there were no hand-guards, only
a small piece of elaborately moulded iron that hardly
covered the fingers; this iron work carried numerous little
1 Couto, X. 10. 4.
3 See Correa, I. 354; ibid. III. 317 and 765; Varthema, p. 150. See
also Jordanus, p. 20.
3
34 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
brass rings that rattled in sword play. For armour they
wore coats wadded with cotton, that came to the elbow
and mid-thigh; on the sword arm there was a gauntlet of
a similar material. On their heads they wore caps also
wadded with cotton, with flaps that covered nearly the
whole face and neck.
There was neither night fighting nor ambuscades. All
fighting was in the daytime when the sun had well risen;
the opposing camps were pitched near each other and
both sides slept securely. At sunrise the soldiers of both
armies mingled at the tank, put on their armour, ate
their rice and chewed their betel, gossipped and chatted
together. At beat of drum either side drew apart and
formed their ranks. It was creditable to be the first to
beat the drum, but no attack was allowed until the other
side had beaten theirs. The armies were formed in close
columns. In the front were the swordsmen, who, with their
shields touching each other and the ground, advanced,
stooping low, at a very slow pace. Behind the swordsmen
were archers, who fired along the ground to hit the enemy
in the feet ; with these archers were others who threw, also
along the ground, either clubs of heavy black wood, or circles
of iron with sharp edges like quoits ; where these weapons
touched a bone they broke it, or at least knocked a man
over and made a gap in the ranks ; in the rear of all were
the lancemen with lances and javelins.
The fighting was always in the open plain and the advance
— all stooping — very slow, now gaining ground, now losing,
so that sometimes a whole day was spent in advances and
retreats. When the drum beat both sides rose to their
feet and fought no more that day. The drum could only
be beaten when both sides were halted, and it was a point
of honour not to beat it unless some advantage could
be claimed. All the strategy was directed to capturing
ARMS AND METHODS OF WARFARE 35
and defending the camp, and scribes were in attendance to
write down the different turns of the battle. At times when
the ranks on one side broke, the slaughter was very great,
but after the drum sounded the two sides mingled together
and there was no bad blood even when a man killed his
own brother. In certain cases where a relative died or a
vassal rebelled, the leader of the side that desired a sus-
pension of hostilities, after the ranks were formed, advanced,
stuck his javelin in the ground, leant his sword and shield
against it, and stood apart; the leader on the other side
imitated him, and a truce ensued. This artificial system
broke down very quickly under the stress of fighting against
the Portuguese. Thus it had always been the custom for
the Samuri to sound a trumpet that it took four men to
lift, to warn his enemy in the morning of an intended
attack. In 1536 he nearly surprised the Portuguese by
abandoning the custom suddenly. 1
The Muhamedans of India were in a different class as
fighting men, better armed and more ready to take advan-
tage of every chance of the field either by day or night.
In the gallant fight at Pandarani Kollam in 1504, where the
Portuguese attacked a much larger force in position, many
of their adversaries wore coats of mail, and as these were
heavy, the owners, when they jumped overboard in a
fright, were drowned. " Still as fighting men even they were
far inferior to the troops that came in the Egyptian fleet
from Suez. It was a maxim among the Portuguese that
foot-men did not count ; their only defensive weapon was
a shield, and the bowmen had not even that. 3 None of
the battles, however, described by the Portuguese histo-
1 Castanheda, VIII. 1 44.
3 Ibid., I. 97.
3 Ibid., II. 16.
36 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
rians — and they are numerous and told in great detail —
sound much more than magnified street brawls.
The interest of this description of the methods of fighting
in Southern India, transmitted to us by the Portuguese writers,
is enhanced by the evidence it affords that those methods
were introduced from Northern India by the Brahmins, to
mitigate the ferocity of the races whom they converted to
the Hindu religion. The earliest form in which they are
found is in the six rules agreed to by both sides in the
great war of Bharata, celebrated in the Mahabharat, which
embody some of the most artificial of the customs. It may
be, as some have said, ! that these six rules were introduced
into that poem by Brahminical writers at a later date, to
give them an historical sanction in the eyes of subsequent
generations; but the same could hardly be said of their
inclusion in the laws of Manu where they are also found.
But whether this view be correct, that is, whether they
actually governed the fight on the plain of Kurukhshetra
or not is of little importance; the great fact is the proof
that these passages in the Portuguese writers give, that the
Brahmin carried with him in his civilizing advance over
India such influence that he could impose his humanizing
rules on the savage races over which he established his
yoke, — rules, too, which, although they have left their trace
to the present day in the chivalrous tone of some Hindu
races, notably the Rajputs, laid those adopting them open
to the attacks of outsiders who could reap every advantage
from the artificial system that bound their adversaries.
In the middle of the 14th century gunpowder had been
introduced into Europe, and by the end of the 15th a con-
siderable advance had been made in the manufacture of
gun-carriages, which had become lighter and had been
1 Talboys Wheeler. "History of India," Vol I. p. 283.
ARMS AND METHODS OF WARFARE 37
placed on wheels ; iron projectiles also supplanted stone.
The English yeomen of the guard are said to have had
some sort of hand-gun worked by two men as early as
1485. Vasco da Gama's ships had cannon of a kind
but such weapons were quite unknown on the African Coast,
while on the Malabar Coast, though not unknown, they
were not in use. As late as 1506, when D. Lourengo
d'Almeida visited Ceylon, the Singhalese were ignorant of
gunpowder, and the noise of the cannon sufficed to drive
away all thought of resistance from their minds. When Da
Gama visited Calicut a second time, in 1 502, and bombarded it,
the Samuri had, as ah eye-witness states, l only two inferior
pieces in position ; those who worked them had no idea of
aiming and they took long to load. In the following year
when the Samuri attacked Duarte Pacheco with all his force,
he could only bring some iron guns that shot stones as
hard as a man could throw them. 2 Early in 1503 two
Milanese, Joao Maria and Piero Antonio, who understood
gun-founding, deserted the Portuguese for the Samuri's
service. They founded a good deal of artillery and trained
many artificers before they were killed in a riot a few
years later, on the suspicion that they were going to desert
again. 3 In 1505 four Venetians had reached Malabar in the
Red Sea ships in order to cast artillery, 4 and from this
time the knowledge of the art remained in India.
Albuquerque found some kind of large hand-gun in use
in Malacca, which he conquered in 1 5 1 1 , but matchlocks
were not introduced into Portuguese India until 15 12, when
some of German manufacture were imported, and there
1 Thome Lopes.
2 Castanheda, I. 68.
3 Varthema knew these men in Calicut, p. 274.
4 CastaDheda, II. 12.
38 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
were " found men who ventured to fire them." ' Goa workmen
were capable of making them and improving on the models.
As early as 1510 Albuquerque began to enlist trained bands
and give them some tincture of discipline; the officers for
whom he wrote to teach them drill 3 came in the fleet with
the matchlocks ; they had themselves been taught in Italy.
Albuquerque started a corps of 300 pikemen, 50 cross-
bowmen and 50 matchlock men. 3 As they were viewed
with considerable jealousy, and the innovation of drill bitterly
resented, his successor reversed this, as he did many other
of Albuquerque's reforms. Albuquerque devoted to his
indents for arms the minute care he carried into all he
undertook. " White body-armour is difficult to keep clean
"in the Indian climate, leather cuirasses need no harness-
" scourers' frames; pikes and lances should be sent to draw
" blood ; there is only one upstart barber in India, and the
"fleet cannot be kept waiting his pleasure. Men must be
"encouraged," he continues, with excellent sense, "to take a
" pride in their arms ; it is public opinion that makes men
" do great deeds." 4
Early matchlocks were not an unmixed advantage. The
powder used in them and in big guns was different, and
in the first siege of Diu several of the latter were burst
because the two got mixed. The matchlockman had to
stand up to his enemy while he reloaded, — a long operation
during which an active opponent would pour in a stream
of arrows; 5 in 15 19 Christovao de Sousa was beaten out
1 Correa, II. 302. According to note to Varthema, p. 65, matchlocks were
unknown in Arabia until 15 15.
2 Cartas, p. 19.
3 Ibid., p. 83 ; see also p. 385. The Portuguese word used for drill
is Soiga, which shows whence they learnt it.
4 Ibid., p. 296.
6 Barros, III. 3. 8. It is not always remembered that bows and arrows
have been used in European warfare during this century. Marbot tajrs the
Cossacks at Leipzic were so armed.
ARMS AND METHODS OF WARFARE 39
of Dabul by Muhamedan bowmen in this way. As late as
1526 the Portuguese were ordered to throw down discharged
matchlocks and fall on with other arms ; ' the Portuguese
in consequence took their slaves into action to carry a
reserve of weapons. Still their possession did confer su-
periority; between 1530 and 1538 the chief of Zeila nearly
conquered Abyssinia because his army had matchlocks, —
new weapons in that country, and it was only the landing
of a Portuguese force that freed Abyssinian soil. 2 In 1536
rapidity of fire was increased by the introduction of cart-
ridges containing the correct measure of powder and the
ball. 3
Indian guns were generally of iron and the Portuguese
destroyed them as useless, but in 1634 copper ones were
so frequently stolen that the Portuguese government ordered
that only iron ones should be cast in future. Bombards
were loaded at the breach ; loaded chambers were kept in
readiness, and it was the accidental explosion of some of
these that stopped an attack by Pedro Alvarez Cabral on
some boats at Kapukad in 1 500. Cannon were dangerous
to friends as well as foes ; bombardments in the early
voyages had frequently to be stopped, as more injury was
being done to the ships from recoil than to the enemy
from bullets. Aim was very erratic ; thus a shot fired
point-blank by the Portuguese at the hull of an Egyptian
ship in D. Lourengo's fight at Chaul, in 1508, cleared the
fighting-top of its defenders. 4 When Lopo Soares was
at Jedda in 15 17, the Turks had a "basilisk" that was said
to throw a shot of three-quarters of a cwt. ; it was fired
1 Correa, II. 947.
2 Castro Roteiro of 1541, p. 67.
3 Correa, III. 69.
4 Castanheda, II. 78.
4 o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
from a galley at a Portuguese ship close by, and the
recoil was so great that the former showed her keel and
the shot flew wide. Direction and elevation could only be
changed with difficulty, and on many occasions the Portu-
guese passed at low water heavily armed works because
the guns had been trained for vessels coming at the top
of the tide. As early as 1536 guns appear to have been
mounted on camels and elephants, and sometimes also
on bullock carts ; in the last case they were fired from the
back of the cart.
In the Turkish and Egyptian fleets the Portuguese had
to meet guns of good quality and trained gunners, whose
skill at Diu in 1546 excited the unstinted admiration of their
opponents : they are described as being able to put 20 shots
running into an egg, and send a 31b. shot through a hogs-
head of earth. The gunners in the Portuguese service
were frequently Flemings and Germans ; those that came
with the Turkish fleet were usually renegades from Southern
Europe. The large guns were individualized and had their
pet names, —thus at the siege of Chaul, in 1 57 1 , the Mu-
hamedans had one big gun which the Portuguese called the
" butcher ", ' served by a Brahmin named Rama. After
the siege had been in progress some months a duel in regular
form began between the "butcher" and a Portuguese
"lion". Ruy Gongalves, the Portuguese gunner, appeared
in his gala costume astride of his piece, grimacing and
threatening, and his opponent Rama appeared on his. The
duel lasted three days and ended in the defeat of the
"lion." 2
1 The Portuguese word is Cagapo, a form of Kasab.
2 See Fryer, Letter 4, Ch. 5, where another instance of the individualizing
of guns is given. It was a slow business raising a mantlet and firing a
gun, and a watch was always kept to warn all undercover when the enemy's
mantlet was raised.
ARMS AND METHODS OF WARFARE 41
When the Egyptians came the first time, in 1508, the
Portuguese found themselves at a disadvantage, as they
had neither boarding-nets nor powder-pots, but they soon
adopted them, and the latter especially became a very
favourite weapon : they were a kind of hand-grenade, and
at a pinch, could be improvized from two tiles placed with
their concave sides inwards ; a man carried his supply in
a leathern bucket. In the early days powder was used
rather for incendiary purposes than as an explosive in mines. '
Mines were often as destructive to their constructors as to
anyone else, but the one exploded at the siege of Diu on
August 10th, 1546, under the bastion of St. John, when
D. Fernandes de Castro and between 40 and 50 Portuguese
were killed, was an exception.
In defensive armour the Portuguese were better protected
than their opponents, and the mail-clad Portuguese, though
he might be suffocated in his armour, could hardly be killed
by any offensive weapon of his opponents ; this accounts for
the battles which ended in the slaughter of so many of
the enemy with no loss to the Portuguese. When the
Marshal was killed at Calicut armour had been thrown
aside. Still, however highly we rate the superiority of the
Portuguese in arms, their success does not rest on that
alone — they had a vast moral superiority. Trained by their
long apprenticeship in the wars of Europe, and hardened
by facing the dangers of unknown seas, the early adven-
turers were able to meet with a gay heart uncounted odds,
under circumstances which made defeat and annihilation
synonymous. That, studying the facts four centuries later,
we can understand the weakness of their opponents, in no
way detracts from the renown of those who led the way
in this conflict.
1 It was so used in the defence of Ormuz in 1521. — Castanheda, V. 86.
Bassein fort was after capture blown up with it in 1533. — Correa, III. 474.
42 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Voyages. — It is difficult to put oneself in a position
quite to understand the condition under which the early
navigators made their voyages. Now that the phenomena
of nature, however terrible, are known to follow some de-
fined law, the sea presents a different aspect from the decks
of a modern ocean-going steamer to what it did from the
small vessels in which the earlier voyages were made. In
modern tonnage Da Gama's vessels varied from 60 to 150
tons ; when ships grew larger their seaworthiness did not
increase in proportion, nor were the voyages shortened, in
fact the percentage of losses increased very considerably.
Falcao, in his statistics, divided the ships sent to India into
two periods, ' the one from Da Gama's voyage to the ac-
cession of Philip II in 1579, the other from 1580 to 161 2.
They work out as follows :
PFRTOD Ships that left Ships that stayed Balance to be Returned
Portugal in Iudia accounted for safely.
1497 to 1579 620 256 364 325
i58otoi6i2 186 29 157 IOO
That is, whereas in the first period 90 p.c. of the ships,
in the second only 63 p.c. returned safely to Portugal ;
these figures show a remarkable falling off in seamanship.
Couto perhaps gives one of the reasons when, speaking
of another subject, he says incidentally: 2 "Because we are
"Portuguese who do not get to the bottom of things, not
" even at what is at our doors, as in Surat river and other
"places which we have frequented for over 160 years. Both
" the Dutch and the English know more of it than we do,
" who, the very first time they went there, found anchorages
" between shoals and banks where they stay as securely as
"if they were at home from our fleet which cannot injure
1 Falcao, p. 194.
3 Couto, IX. 24. 25.
VOYAGES 43
" them. Our fleets who go in and out every day know of
"them (the shoals) what the English have taught us."
Again, the Italian, Delia Valle, who some 20 years later
travelled in an English ship from Ormuz to Surat, was
struck by the instruction given to all ranks: 20 or 30 per-
sons took the altitude daily, — the more experienced teach-
ing the ignorant. On the Portuguese ships, on the other
hand, he found the pilot took the observation alone, worked
out the reckoning in secret, and quarrelled with any one who
desired to take an altitude; many ships were lost in conse-
quence. He even accuses the pilots of wrecking ships to
get the insurance money, which has a modern ring about
it. It was the custom too for one ship to carry the light
at night, no other lights being allowed except one in the
binnacle and one in the captain's cabin. 1 There are
several cases on record where, through careless navigation,
the light ship was lost and the others of the fleet followed
her. These reasons are general and apply to both periods
equally, but any dangerous practice tended to become more
dangerous with increasing demoralization.
In the earlier voyages the ships were built both for fighting
and for trade ; with Vasco da Gama's fleet of 1 502 there first
went out ships destined to remain in India — that is fighting
and not cargo ships. Almeida and Albuquerque both showed
great interest in the dockyards of Cochin, and at the time
of the latter's death he had a large ship nearly ready for
launching. It was found, however, with a little experience,
that large ships were unsuited to Indian warfare, in which
organized fleets had very rarely to be encountered, but in
which the enemy had to be followed into creeks and rivers.
Vasco da Gama, in his third term in 1524, took out a
1 See Lopo Soares 1 sailing orders in An. Mar. e Col., 3rd series, p. 355:
also Castanheda, I. 90.
44 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Genoese ship-builder who promised to build boats " to catch
a mosquito." These boats could either sail or row ; they
carried 30 fighting-men, and the oarsmen had arms under
the thwarts and were available in a melee.
The pay of crews varied too much for any examination
of their salaries to be profitable, but at first all classes
received a share in the cargo. The method of reckoning
the shares presents features of interest : the unit was the
sailor — two "grummets " ! equalled one sailor, and three pages
equalled one "grummet". The caulker, carpenter, rope-maker,
steward, barber-bleeder, and priest each equalled two sailors,
and the boatswain and quartermaster one sailor and a half.
Ships of private adventurers first went out with Joao da
Nova's fleet in 1501, the adventurers were often Florentines;
they provided the ship complete with crew (who must be
Portuguese) and rigging; government supplied arms, muni-
tions and victuals. The amount of pepper to be brought
back was settled before the ship started, the rest of the
space was at the disposal of the adventurers and the crew.
At the end of the voyage 22 p.c. of the profits on the
King's cargo was paid to the adventurers as freight. 2
The conditions of sea travelling seem very unfamiliar to
us. Every ship met was an enemy until proved to be a
friend, and for a stranger, even a countryman, to come down
with the wind, was enough to justify a broadside. 3 Not
only was every vessel a possible enemy, but the assistance
even of a friend at a pinch could not be relied on. When
four of Cabral's ships were overturned in a squall, the rest
1 "Grummet" survives in south-east England as an '-awkward boy". In
the Cinque Ports navy "gromet" was a "cabin boy." — Parish Dictionary of
the Sussex Dialect.
- Correa, I. 234.
:i See Mocquet's Voyages, |>. 56. for an amusing account of a meeting of
this kind.
VOYAGES 45
of the fleet sailed on, leaving their comrades clinging to
the keels; instances of this kind were to some extent due
to ignorance of navigation, for ignorance breeds panic.
The conduct of the great Magalhaens stands out conspicuous
on the other side; he risked his life to save some sailors
abandoned by their commander on the Sumatra coast ; and
a few months later, when the ship in which he was going
to Portugal was wrecked on the Padua shoals, he refused to
accompany the other officers in their flight, and set a noble
example by throwing in his lot with the men. ' Fernando
de Castro, a Franciscan, set another, when in 1559 the ship
of D. Luiz Fernandes de Vasconcellos began to founder and
all the officers left in the ship's boat. The Franciscan
alone refused to go. "The souls of these 200 men are of
more value than my poor life," he said, and all were
drowned together. ~
With the instruments then in use, navigation was rather
a haphazard affair. At the end of the 15th century it was
necessary to land to take an observation with any approxim-
ation to accuracy. Vasco da Gama landed at intervals on
his first voyage to correct his reckoning. 3 Later, naviga-
tors were more careless and often went wrong, thus in 1 53 1
Manuel de Botelho, coming from Portugal to Cochin, rounded
Ceylon without knowing it, and found himself at the Nico-
bars ; he was apparently a careless navigator, for trying to
return he was wrecked on an island near Calicare. He was
given another ship and sailed for Europe in company with
his brother, also a Captain, but the two vessels were never
seen again, it was considered that possibly they had been
1 Castanheda, III. 5. The story is well authenticated.
2 See Couto, VI. 8. 3, for the previous history of this man; this story is
in ibid. VII. 8. 1. For another instance of humanity, see Correa, IV, 413.
3 Barros, I. 4. 2, has much of interest on this subject.
46 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
wrecked, but that probably they had fought out an old
quarrel at sea and sunk each other.
One of the most unfortunate voyages on record was that
of the homeward-bound governor, Francisco Barreto, who
took iy 2 years to get to Europe. He started early in
1 5 S9» a H March was spent in trying to round the Cape.
The ship was old and rotten, and leaked terribly ; the
pepper of the cargo got into the pumps and choked them. '
Failing to pass the Cape, they returned to Mozambique
and waited there for seven months for the next season, to
start again; and Barreto had to spend £4,000 or £5,000
in feeding the crew and repairing the crazy ship. On
November 7th he started in company with another vessel,
but his ship began to leak again, and his companion actually
foundered. With 1,137 souls crowded into his ship, and
her sails split in a storm, there was nothing for Barreto to
do but to put back again ; he reached Mozambique on
December 17th. In March 1560 he returned to India for
a fresh ship, and left again on December 20th, reaching
Lisbon finally on June 13th, 1 561 .
The life on shipboard itself was under conditions most
unfamiliar to us. Linschoten's voyage was in 1583 and
Mocquet's in 1608, and the accounts of both are very
similar. " On the outward voyage the passengers were
dieted, but on the return they had to provide for themselves ;
in both voyages men obtained their own fuel and did their
own cooking. The ships were terribly overcrowded ; and
Mocquet's account of the squalor, filth and disease is quite
untranslatable. Sleep was hardly possible lest the scanty
dole of water should be stolen. The mortality was frightful ;
men crept away to die in corners and were sometimes not
1 In describing a similar voyage, Albuquerque says, "the men always had
the pumps in their hands and the Virgin Mary in their mouths."
2 Linschoten, I. 10. Mocquet's fourth voyage is that in which he went to India.
PIRACY 47
found for days. On the average not 60 per cent, of the
men who left Portugal reached India. ' The heaviest death-
roll that has come down to us is that of the ship in which
the Viceroy Lourengo Pires de Tavora travelled in 1576.
The Viceroy himself died and 900 of the 1,100 on board.
Piracy. — In addition to the licenses for the longer voyages
granted by the crown, the Captains of fortresses were, under
the Portuguese system, allowed to give licenses and safe-
conducts for shorter voyages ; these were often mere excuses
for open piracy. The line between what was legitimate
privateering and what was open piracy was so finely drawn
that there was every opportunity for the enforced transfer
of coveted property without any difficult enquiries into the
justice of the proceeding, and, where the line was passed,
a pardon was easily got. On the Indian coasts the rule
of the strong had been for many generations the only law ;
thus on the Malabar Coast (except at Calicut) a custom
was even enforced that a ship blown out of her course
into a port to which she was not bound was lawful prize
— she had been sent by God. The wars that followed the
Portuguese intrusion fostered buccaneers. The Portuguese
were too strong at sea to be opposed directly, and the
creeks and rivers were well adapted to harbour light and
speedy craft ready to pounce on some vessel weaker than
themselves. Some of the so-called pirate leaders were,
however, commanders under the Samuri, carrying on a
guerilla warfare. Near Goa, in Sangameshwar, was a nest
of buccaneers employed in Goa itself to prey on Goa trade,
and in 1584 they defeated a regular Portuguese expedi-
tion sent against them. 2
1 Sassetti quoted in a note Linschoten, I. 199.
2 See Pyrard de Laval, I. 446, for an account of the Malabar rovers of
his day.
48 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
With the decay of the Portuguese nation the evil of
piracy extended not only to all the Indian coasts, but also
up the Persian Gulf. T Trade was increasing and there was
no efficient police. Tavernier, in the middle of the 17th
century, has many tales of the depredations of these
rovers, — one of an English master mariner named Clerk,
who with his crew defended the ship to the last, and left
a slow match at the magazine when they took to their
boats. The crew were captured, and their ransom was fixed
at 4,000 crowns for themselves and 2,400 crowns at 2
crowns a piece for the 1,200 pirates they had blown up.
Ovington has a story of one Edward Say, master of the
" Heart's Delight" which was captured. By bribing one of
the pirates, he concealed part of his money in a gun, but
unluckily for Say this gun was fired to celebrate the return
home of the successful craft, and the master's last penny
went overboard. There were still some remnants of these
pirates early in this century. Ras el Khema, one of their
strongholds, was captured in November 1809. "
A few instances will bring the conditions here described
more vividly home. In 1523, while D. Duarte de Menezes
was governor, licenses to privateers were given freely.
Francisco Pereira Pestana, Captain of Goa, among others
issued one to Antonio Faleiro who was at one time a
merchant and at another a soldier, to make prizes off Cape
Guardafui. The Captain was to supply the necessary
ordnance from the arsenal and receive a share of the
proceeds of the cruise. 3 Faleiro was a man of some ability
who knew more than one language, and he collected some
1 Fryer gives a characteristic account in his voyage from Swallyhole to
Persia.
2 Asiatic Journal, II. p. 341.
3 The story of Faleiro will be found in Castanheda, VI. 35 to 39;
Correa, II. 760. Correa and Couto record his connection with the first siege
of Diu in 1538.
PIRACY 49
20 Portuguese, some outlaws and others, promising that
their beards should become gold, and manned two boats.
They started in company with two trading vessels, an
Ormuz terrada and a Cananor hooker [haquer). At an
island beyond Diu they fell in with a vessel running from
Diu to Persia, and though it was provided with a Portuguese
pass, they robbed it of goods worth £ 15,000 and enslaved
the crew. The hooker got lost on the Arabian coast, near
Dofar, and only nine men escaped, who, when they were
attacked by the country people, defended themselves until
they reached Dofar, where the Shaikh helped them. Faleiro
meanwhile had gone to Kalhat and there sold the goods
he had robbed, and although the Shaikh there was very
friendly, Faleiro, on the pretext of a debt, bombarded his
house till he sent him a present of £ 200.
From there Faleiro went on to Dofar, and on the road
overhauled a Red Sea ship. The crew, thinking they could
ransom themselves in Dofar, would neither fight nor run.
In Dofar Faleiro ordered the Shaikh to ransom this ship
and to buy off the other vessels in the harbour, or he would
burn them all ; the nine men whom the Shaikh had helped
requited his kindness badly enough, for they egged on
Faleiro to rob the town. The Shaikh, however, utilized
the delay of the messages to fortify himself, and when it
came to an open rupture Faleiro could do nothing. The
pirates left the town, and Faleiro sent off the Red Sea ship
up the coast, to dispose of her lading, under the command
of Afonso de Soure, and gave him six Portuguese and
some Kanara men to work her. They started with little
water, but the pilot knew of some place near the shore
where it could be got. The mountains along the Arabian
shore are high, the sea is sheltered from the wind, and the
ship made so little way that the water began to give out.
The crew were put on an allowance, and as the heat was
4
So THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
very great many of the Muhamedans died of thirst. When
they were opposite the watering-place the ship was 1 5
miles off the land, the air was calm and they could bring
her no nearer in ; so the Portuguese drew lots as to who
should undertake the dangerous duty of landing from a
boat on a hostile shore. The lot fell on Afonso da Veiga,
Joao Sirgueiro and another; they were given some cloth
to quiet the country people if necessary, and started in the
ship's boat with their matchlocks and some slaves to row.
They left at eight in the morning, but the currents carried
them a long way down the coast, which they only reached
at two hours before sunset. They sent on shore to search
for water, but the men fell into an ambush of Arabs who
had watched them from the hills ; some were wounded, but
all escaped back to the boat. Lower down the coast they
found no resistance, and got water from some brackish
springs under some palms near the shore. It was after
sunset when, wearied with their labours in the great heat,
and having had little to eat all day, they turned to row
back to the ship. The Portuguese thrashed the oarsmen,
but neither blows nor threats of death could get more work
out of them. The Portuguese themselves rowed, but they
did not find the ship, and as in the morning even the land
was nearly out of sight, they returned, as their only chance,
to try and get their bearings from the high land. It was
near sunset when they got back to the shore, and cast their
grapnel some way out lest the boat should fall into an
ambush. Afonso da Veiga swam on shore with his lance
held before him, and finding no one, climbed the hill and
looked this way and that, but could not see the ship; De
Soure had in fact waited a short time and then, concluding
the boat was captured, gone on his way; and shortly after
his ship was taken by the Muhamedans and all the Portu-
guese in her killed. To return to Da Veiga and his com-
PIRACY 5l
pamons-when the slaves heard the state of affairs they
abandoned the boats and fled up country. Left to themselves
the Portuguese caught some fish,.which they ate, and agreed
to wait till the next day to see if anything turned up.
Failing that, their only chance was to go up the coast to
Muscat; their spirits were cheered by finding 8 gallons
of wheat in a bag accidentally thrown in with the ballast.
That same evening a young Arab of about 18, wearing
only a cap and a waistcloth, and carrying a dart, came
suddenly round a rock; thinking it an ambush, Da Veiga
fired h.s matchlock at him, and if the Arab had not ducked
the ball would have killed him. When the ball had passed
he ran into the sea and swam out, and after collecting the
wits the hum of the ball had scattered, he told them, partly
by words and partly by signs, that he had watched them
while he was grazing his flocks in the hills and had seen
their ship sail away,_that now they had better come to
his village of Mete where the Shaikh was friendly to their
nation. The Portuguese promised to pay him well if he
brought them food, and the young man went off and re-
turned the next day at the same time, with a bundle of
balls of wheat flour such as the Arabs eat, ' a gourd of
white honey, five fowls and a friendly message from the
Shaikh; and that night, two or three hours before dawn
they heard the song of the four African slaves whom he
had sent to bring them to his village. They reached Mete
during the morning, but Joao Sirgueiro refused to land as
he feared treason, until the Shaikh, who was a good fellow
heard of the difficulty, came, and telling his beads as he
went, spoke to them in Portuguese and welcomed them.
Iwo of the three eventually reached India, but the third
Joao Sirgueiro, was drowned in the wreck of a vessel in
1 Apas they are called by the Portuguese.
52
THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
which he hoped to have made a speedier passage. Antonio
Faleiro continued his piratical career for some time and
then returned to India, where he spent the monsoon months
near Chaul, and got a pardon from the Governor. Of his
subsequent history we only know that he was employed in
the Gogala outwork at the first siege of Diu in 1538, and
was captured with the rest of the garrison; but he escaped
the fate of the others, who became galley slaves, by turning
Muhamedan and trying to seduce the Diu garrison from
its allegiance.
Faleiro had turned pirate on the Arabian coast; Damiao
Bernaldes did the same in the Bay of Bengal. When
Nuno da Cunha returned from his first unsuccessful expe-
dition to Diu in 1531, he gave a merchant, Damiao Bernaldes,
who had accompanied him to Diu, a license for a voyage
to Bengal; but after rounding Cape Comorin, Bernaldes
began to rob friend and foe alike. At the Nicobars he
robbed a Muhamedan ship, retained the money -£9 ,000-
for himself, and kept the ship and artillery to pacify the
Governor. Before he reached Chittagong, however, letters
from the Governor, who had heard of his doings, had reached
there addressed to the Wazir and to Khwaja Shahabu-d-
din, a local merchant friendly to the Portuguese asking
them to arrest Bernaldes if they could,-if not to kill him
and his crew at sight. There were then 17 Portuguese
vessels in the harbour, and Shahabu-d-din and the masters
consulted, and knowing that probably Bernaldes would work
out his pardon, they decided to do nothing. All went well
with Bernaldes till one day he captured and held to ransom a
leading Muhamedan. When this got known in the town the
Wazir seized as many Portuguese as he could before they
escaped to their ships. Bernaldes refused to take in exchange
, This story of Bernaldes will be found in Castanheda, VHI. 46, and Correa,
111. 446-
LAND JOURNEYS 53
these Portuguese for the Muhamedan, and even when they
were brought to the shore, stripped naked and whipped, he
said they might hang them if they pleased, but for his " Moor "
he must have i^2,ooo. The Nicobar ship lay close to Ber-
naldes, and some men who had permission to live in her,
seeing the game was up, determined to gain some credit
with the Governor and take him the ship themselves. Soon
after midnight, when the tide began to fall they cut the
upstream cable and hauled on the downstream; they satis-
fied the sleepy watch on Bernaldes's ship by saying it was
only the anchors dragging. In the morning, as she was out
of sight, Bernaldes had to exchange his " Moor" for the Por-
tuguese and go in pursuit; but he bumped his rudder out
on the Chittagong bar and never overhauled the runaway.
Bernaldes landed at Negapatam to go on to Vijayanagara and
await his pardon, but the Portuguese settlement was on the
alert and he was captured, thrown into irons and sent to
the Governor. He was sentenced to banishment for ten years,
but died in prison, not without suspicion of poison, after
the Governor had got out of him all the money he had left.
Land Journeys. — During the 15 th and 16th centuries the
Jews were the great land travellers — the references to them
are continual. To quote some instances: in 15 12 three
Jews came to Albuquerque with news of the Muhamedan
world from Cairo; in 1543 two were sent overland from
India to Portugal to spy out the doings of the Turks and
report them to the King; and in 158 1, after the accession
of Philip II of Spain to the Portuguese throne was acknow-
ledged in India, a Jew accompanied the envoy with the
news across Persia. l Tenreiro, who himself travelled through
Central and Western Asia about 1528, notices the extra-
1 Cartas, p. 95. Correa, IV. 268. Couto, X. 1. 13.
54 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
ordinary ease with which Jews could pass anywhere; but
Jedda from its proximity to Mecca was rather an exception,
for Jews travelling up the Red Sea avoided that town and
went by Kosseir. The early Portuguese passed as Muha-
medans both in dress and in customs. '
Jews were employed by King John II in the land explora-
tions with which he supplemented the scanty knowledge
that he had of India, and prepared the way for the im-
mediate utilization of the Cape route when it was discovered.
His first expedition, headed by Antonio de Lisboa, had to
return as none of the party knew Arabic. The second was
better selected ; it consisted of Afonso de Payva and Pero
de Covilham, who started on May 7th, 1487, with £\jo in
their pockets. Their route lay through Barcelona and Naples
to Rhodes and Alexandria. From this point they passed
as Muhamedans, and travelled through Tor at the mouth
of the Gulf of Suez, Suakin and Aden. Thence Afonso
started to discover the country of the Prester John, and
Covilham to discover India ; their meeting-place was to be
Cairo. Covilham visited Cananor, Calicut and Sofala, and
returned by Ormuz to Cairo, where he heard of the murder
of Afonso, and met two Portuguese Jews sent in search of
him, Rabbi Abraham and Joseph — a shoemaker. The latter
had already travelled through Mesopotamia, and he took
back Covilham's account of his travels to Portugal, while
Covilham and Abraham started for Ormuz; thence Covilham
despatched Abraham to Portugal with a duplicate account
of his travels, and started himself for Abyssinia, where he
remained till his death in honourable captivity. Rodcrigo
de Lima found him there in 1520.
The first overland journey to Portugal was in 15 13, when
Albuquerque sent from the Red Sea, Fernao Dias, a Muha-
1 One went so far as to be circumcised in Malindi. — Cartas, p. 316.
LAND JOURNEYS 55
medan who had deserted to the Portuguese during the
African wars. He was disguised as an escaped slave, '
reached Portugal and returned to India in safety. The
most important of the early land journeys after Covilham's
is, however, that of Antonio Tenreiro, who took a new route.
He had a dispute with a man in India too wealthy for him
to withstand, and for this reason attached himself to an
embassy sent in 1524 by D. Duarte de Menezes, the
governor, to Shah Ismail of Persia. On this occasion he
left the mission and wandered off to Cairo, apparently
disguised as a Muhamedan. He returned in safety to Ormuz,
and when, in 1528, some news of the Turks had to be
sent in haste to Portugal, Tenreiro was naturally selected
for the journey. He left at the end of September, and at
Basra found that he had missed the Aleppo caravan. With
the help of the local Shaikh he got an Arab and two riding
camels, and started on his adventurous journey. They
travelled across the desert in 22 days, including a halt of
eight days to allow Tenreiro's camel that had staked itself
in a senseless panic, to recover from the wound. The Aleppo
caravan was overtaken 8 days out of that town, and the
Arab and the camels were sent back. At Aleppo Tenreiro
stayed in the house of one Andre, a Venetian friend of his
former journey, but matters were not comfortable ; Andre
was wealthy and had been summoned to Constantinople to
answer frivolous charges, Tenreiro therefore destroyed some
compromising correspondence and hurried on to Portugal.
His actual travelling time was 3 months. 2 In 1565 another
traveller Mestre Afonso, the chief physician of D. Francisco
Coutinho, travelled overland; he has left a very minute
diary of his travels. 3
1 Albuquerque Cartas, p. 230. Correa, II. 348.
2 Tenreiro's narrative, published some years later, is interesting.
3 Commenced in An. Mar. e Col. Series, p. 214, it runs through many numbers.
56 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
These were the more or less official travellers, but we
get glimpses of a great number of Europeans in the East.
To take only those who have left no written record
behind them, many of them renegades and slaves : Malik
Aiyaz, the first governor of Diu with whom the Portuguese
came in contact, was a Russian who had been enslaved
in his childhood. Sifr Agha, the second, was an Italian
renegade. There were also Italian merchants who visited
the East, such as the Venetian Bonadjuto de Albao ' who
tried to warn Aires Correa of the emeute in 1500, whom
Albuquerque took back to Portugal after his visit of
1503, and who returned as an interpreter in Almeida's
fleet. He had gone to India about 1480 with Francisco
Marcillo, a Venetian consul in Alexandria who had been
sent as envoy to India. There were the two Jews whom
Albuquerque captured in a Red Sea ship in 15 10; one of
whom turned Christian, married and settled in Goa ; the
other, an excellent linguist, became Albuquerque's most
confidential adviser, 2 and was, in 15 15, converted to Chris-
tianity with the name Alexander d'Ataide. After his
master's death he went to Portugal and gave the King
much information as to Albuquerque's plans ; but in Lisbon a
most impudent attempt was made to blackmail him, 3 and
disgusted with Christianity he returned in a Venetian ves-
sel to Cairo, where Tenreiro met him and found his account
in holding his tongue as to the other's temporary profes-
sion of Christianity.
Of Gabriel, the Pole, we only get a glimpse. Couto's
account of him is that "he travelled through Muscovy to
1 This is the Portuguese form of the name.
3 Gaspar Pereira and Antonio Real drew up certain articles against Al-
buquerque in 1 5 1 2 : one of the items was that he allowed these two men to
govern India. — Castanheda, III. 123.
3 Correa, II. 134.
LAND JOURNEYS 57
"the country of the Usbegs, and was some years in the
" Court of Abdulla Khan of Samarkand ; thence passed to
" the Mogul's, in whose house and service he stayed 1 5 years,
"and then came to this city of Goa where we knew him;
"and he told us much of those parts, which he remembered
"well, for he was a clever man and of a nimble wit; and by
" what he told us he had seen as much or more than Marco
" Polo, the Venetian, for he travelled through Muscovy, Us-
" begia, Persia, Tartary, and arrived at Cambalec, at the
" Court of the great Khan, and was in part of China, and
" returned to Hindustan and traversed all the country of the
" Moguls and all Cambay and Scinde, and after being some
"years in Goa went to Cambay, where he died."'
It is a noteworthy instance of the effect of religious bi-
gotry, that the race whom the statesmen of the end of the
15th century and beginning of the 16th used with such
valuable results, were proscribed by those of the middle
of the 16th. By orders, dated March 15th and 20th, 1568,
no Jew was allowed to go by sea to India, and captains were
made responsible for ejecting them from their ships. 2
» Couto, V. 8. 11.
2 Livros dos Monroes, Vol. II. p. 216.
CHAPTER IV '
RELIGION — COINAGE— REMUNERATION OF OFFICERS
BANISHED MEN
Religion. — It was natural that the relations of the earlier
Portuguese commanders to the few ecclesiastics then in
India differed greatly from those of their successors to the
priests and monks who, commencing from about 1540, bore
such a large proportion to the total population.- Albu-
querque was the master of the clergy as of all else that
approached him, even when they opposed him in his
marriage policy. He allowed his sailors to select wives
from among the wives and daughters of the hostages he
carried off at the time the Adil Shah reconquered Goa ;
his chaplain, however, objected that they were not married
by the rites of the Church. " No, but they are by those
of Afonso d'Albuquerque," was the reply, :) and as such
they continued to be known.
Albuquerque tells the story of a Dominican, in his letters,
who, under threat of excommunication, had exacted Vi
from every married man. 4 The story was this : the Governor
had a body surgeon, one Mestre Afonso, who had kept,
without his master's permission, one of the Goa women as
1 In this chapter there have been brought together some unconnected
subjects that require a separate notice.
2 The story of Almeida told in Correa, I. 624, is probably amusing gossip
embroidered on some slight foundation.
3 Correa, II. 115.
1 Cartas, p. 30.
RELIGION 59
a slave. Consequently, when another man wanted to marry
her she was taken from Mestre Afonso, made a Christian
(their methods were summary) and married. But Mestre
Afonso was not to be beaten in that way. " He had such
a way with him," as Albuquerque puts it, ' that he won over
the woman and induced the Dominican to call her up when
Goa was collected for the Mass, and question her at the
altar as to her marriage. She replied that she was married
without her consent. The indignant husband carried off his
wife and complained to Albuquerque. Mestre Afonso only
got out of the scrape by marrying a wife of the Govern-
or's choice, " a woman much too good for him."
His scorn of those who submitted to ecclesiastical inter-
ference was unbounded. When the Raja of Cananore was
annoyed with the rough manners of Manuel da Cunha,
Albuquerque selected to succeed him Diogo Correa, "a
polite man." 2 Before Albuquerque sailed for Malacca there
was a street fight in Cananor in which a Christian native
killed a Hindu and then took sanctuary in a church. On
complaint from the Raja, the Christian was taken from the
church and his hand struck off. No sooner had Albuquerque
sailed than the local priest interfered, fined the Captain
.£20 for obeying the Governor, and placed Cananor under
an interdict. Albuquerque's comment to the King was — "If
" Diogo Correa were as old as I am he would have laid them
"all by the heels, he is a lax man and fit for little. He had
" better return to Portugal while he is alive." And go he had to.
The Franciscans came out in 15 17, with permission from
the King to build a monastery ; 3 they were given the house
of Joao Machado, the banished man who had been killed
a few months before. The great revival began, however,
1 "Teve tal maneira este Mestre Afonso." — Cartas, p. 31.
2 Cartas, p. 175.
3 Correa, II. 537.
6o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
much later, and of it Miguel Vaz and his friend Diogo de
Borba were the leaders. They obtained pecuniary assistance
from Nuno da Cunha to start the confraternity of the Holy
Faith, which was to be devoted to the conversion of the
native races. The building was actually begun on November
ioth, 1 541 , and opened on January 25th, 1543, the day of
the conversion of St. Paul to whom it was dedicated. '
After the death of the founders it was taken over by the
Jesuits, and from it was derived the name by which that
order was generally known in India.
In 1540 all the Hindu temples in the Island of Goa were
destroyed, ~ an act of intolerant bigotry due to the direct
orders of the King of Portugal. In the Goa villages,
as is generally customary in India to this day, there were
set aside either little rent-free plots, or else certain sums
from the common fund, for the expenses of the local temple
and for the payment of the blacksmith, the carpenter and
the other servants required for daily life. When the temples
had been destroyed the ecclesiastics determined to appro-
priate these grants, whether made to the temple or to the
village workmen. The order 3 for this spoliation exists
and is a curious and repulsive mixture of unctuousness
and rapacity, for its authors take on themselves to answer
for God, that in consequence of the villagers consenting
to give up this income the increase in the productive power
of their villages shall repay a hundredfold the surrendered
money. The sum gained by this was at first only ^250
a year, of which £100 went to the confraternity and ^150
to local hermitages, which latter may have been intended
to break the loss of the destroyed temples; any way, the
grant of 4. } i50 was only temporary, and the whole income
1 For a very interesting account see Correa, IV. 290.
- Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, page 171, note.
3 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 75 of June 30th, 1541.
RELIGION 61
was soon absorbed by the central establishment. This was
only the thin end of the wedge. The orders of June 1541,
unjust as they were, at least professed to proceed with the
consent of the villagers and recognized that where the grant
was of land that land belonged to the village ; but the
ecclesiastical appetite had been whetted. Nine years later
the confraternity, which was by this time in Jesuit hands,
got not only a grant of all such land for themselves, but
also the power to enquire what land that had been the
subject of such a grant at any time had been concealed. '
This power was worked so efficiently in the interest of the
Church that the revenue from this source was quintupled. "
In 1543 one Jeronimo Dias, a bachelor of medicine, was
found guilty of heresy by an ecclesiastical court, sentenced
to be burned, and then handed over to the civil power,
who carried out the sentence. 3 This was the commencement
of the persecution; but the Inquisition was not established
in Goa for many years, though the Sunday after this sen-
tence the papal bull authorizing it was read in the Church.
Dias, having confessed, was strangled before he was burned.
Miguel Vaz, the leading spirit of the revival, who went
to Portugal in 1 545, was there invested with very
considerable powers as Vicar-General, and brought back
with him a letter of the King, dated March 1 546, to D. Joao
de Castro. What purports to be this letter was published
in Andrade's " Life " of that governor, 4 but its terms are so
intolerant that the ecclesiastical editor of the most complete
edition of that work is inclined to consider it not genuine.
1 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 115 of July 8th, 1550. Nuno da Cunha wisely
had forbidden any enquiry into concealed lands. Ibid. No. 73 of October 15th,
1534. More 011 the same subject will be found in the same Fasciculus in
Nos. 129, 131 to 134, 159, 204, and 217.
2 Correa, IV. 290.
» Ibid., IV. 292.
* Vida, p. 51.
62 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
It would have been a grateful task to have agreed in this
view, but there is extant a letter of the Bishop of Goa,
dated March 29th, 1550, which quotes the text of this let-
ter of the King to D. Joao. l It varies in the wording from
that given by Andrade, but breathes exactly the same
intolerant sentiment and bears the same meaning. * There
can be no doubt then but that Vaz brought back with him
a letter authorizing the most violent measures of persecution,
including the search of private houses in Goa for idols.
He also brought powers to turn all non-Christians out of
their offices. * Vaz appears to have proceeded in a very
high-handed way, and the new departure was so unpalatable
that he was poisoned soon after his return. 4 The circum-
stances surrounding his death were shrouded in mystery,
and no enquiry seems to have been made. The Bishop of
Goa and the clergy were on notoriously bad terms with
the religious orders, and scandal in this case accused the
Bishop of complicity in the crime. Xavier was in the
Moluccas when it occurred, and on his arrival in Cochin, a
year later, he considered the scandal so serious that, before
he even went to Goa, he wrote to the King on behalf of
the Bishop. 5 Some interesting letters are printed in
Francisco de S. Luiz' edition of Andrade's Vida de D. Joao
de Castro, 6 which throw a side light on the matter, but
unfortunately these letters are not all printed in extenso.
On December 15th, 1546, Ruy Gongalves de Caminha, the
1 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. III. This evidence was not available when the
doubt referred to in the text was expressed. See also Ibid. Fasc. i,No. 14, §4.
2 Andrade undoubtedly treated documents with scant reverence. See Note
to Vida, p. 387.
3 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 1, No. 14, March 14th, 1549.
4 Couto, VI. 7. 5. Faria y Sousa, 11. 2. 6. The latter accuses " Portugueses
poderosos en Goa."
* Life, Vol. II. p. 14.
5 Page 454-
RELIGION 63
Comptroller of revenue, wrote to D. Joao de Castro, then
apparently in Chaul, warning him that Miguel Vaz was
going to see him. The next letter is one from the Bishop to
the same, dated February 1st, 1 547, from which it would seem
that Vaz had died on the previous January 11th, and his
friend Borba, of grief, on January 26th. The most remarkable
letter, however, is the one from Pero Fernandes, the chief
magistrate, to the Governor, of February 14th, which certain-
ly expresses no detestation of the crime and does not seem
to consider that the recipient of his letter would feel any.
It is light-hearted enough; Diogo de Borba was a bad
Christian to die of grief and not to accept the decrees of
Providence in a proper spirit. The remark that he was
"credulous and believed things with neither head nor feet,''
and also the reference to an application, made by two
priests to the Captain, regarding Miguel's death, " which the
" Governor will see when he comes, and which will show how
"impossible it is to live with some priests," both point to
the charge of poisoning. The letter ends with a reference
to another of the "gang" (quadrilha), the " Bacharel " who
had gone to bed and received extreme unction merely to
keep up the excitement, for, as the Magistrate told the
Bishop, the Pope could cure the " Bacharel " at once by
making him a bishop. These facts are detailed with some
minuteness, not because they lead to any definite conclusion
as to who actually committed the crime, but as showing
that persons powerfully placed were certainly not out of
sympathy with the result. Miguel Vaz was a mere vulgar
persecutor, but at the time of his death Francis Xavier had
been already at work for some years in India.
There came out in the ships of 1548 some monks of
the Dominican order, with great powers from the King to
acquire land in Goa for a monastery. The acquisition of
this land involved them in difficulties, and four years later
64 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
the dispute was still in progress. ' The Dominicans, with
a worthy zeal, took up the cause of the most miserable
class in Goa, the slaves, whose lot it is impossible to
describe. 2 The intention was good, but it is very doubtful
if they did not injure those they attempted to assist.
Botelho, one of the few honest and clear-headed men
then in India, saw the danger into which the country was
drifting, and in 1552 wrote to the King in terms that
leave nothing to be desired for directness. 3 " The religious
"in this country desire to spend so freely and give so
" many alms at the expense of your revenue that a large
" part of it goes in this. There are already so many who
" desire to favour Christianity that a great part of the
" revenue is alienated, and the country round Bassein is
"depopulated. I believe they act from the best motives,
"and that our Lord and your Highness are well served; but
"there seems to be a mean which might be the best
"course, as there are some who want to force people to be
"Christians and who worry the Hindus so that, as I say,
" people fly from the land. Let your Highness do what
"is right."
1 According to Correa the Dominicans brought out a skull of one of the
11,000 virgins. It came well attested, for it miraculously stopped a leak in
the ship on the way out. At Goa it was received with a procession and taken
to a monastery. The Bishop and clergy would not take part in the reception,
through jealousy 5 this caused scandal, as the people favoured the monks at
the expense of the clergy, whose lives were evil. Correa, in the same passage,
reviews the ecclesiastical buildings then in Goa. The Dominicans were to get
£ 20,000 to build the monastery, besides the value of the houses occupied.
The Franciscan Monastery had cost £ 20,000, and there were forty monks.
The cathedral cost £ 6,000, with more than 30 canons and priests, and there
were also in the city 14 churches and hermitages with over 100 clergy
"besides vagabonds." There was also the College of St. Paul with an income
of £ 1,800 a year. The vagabonds are also mentioned in Ar. Port, < >i\. Fate,
4, page 39. Decreto 1 1 .
- Mocquet relates some horrors, page 259.
1 Hotelho's Letters, p. 35.
RELIGION 6s
Botelho, had, when he wrote this, just completed his
return of the income and expenditure of Portuguese India.
Excluding the cost of hospitals which, though managed by
the clergy, represented rather our poorhouses and hospitals
combined than anything else purely religious, the annual
expenditure in ecclesiastical establishments by the state
was £ 6,944 — say £ 7,000, which Botelho considered ex-
cessive, having regard to the size of Portuguese India.
When Falcao prepared his return in 16 12, the area had
certainly not increased, but the total cost of the same
establishments paid by the State had risen to ,£25,978,
say i? 26,000. The cost of hospitals in the same period
rose from ,£4,445 to ^6,376.
The letters of Xavier to the King more than anything
else produced this change. ' This is not the place to enter
into any examination of the missionary labours of this
remarkable man, ' which lie entirely outside the limits of
this work. It is sufficient for note to be taken of the
important share he bore in the ecclesiastical revival.
The records of the first provincial Council of Goa, held
in 1567, on which was founded the law passed on December
4th, 1567, embodying the recommendations of the ecclesias-
tics that composed it, may be mentioned, as they show the
drastic methods adopted by the state at the command of
the Roman Catholic Church, for the conversion of Muhamedans
and Hindus. 3 No Christian could have infidel servants in
his house, be cured by an infidel doctor or be shaved by
an infidel barber. Neither Hindus nor Muhamedans could
1 See especially Life, Vol. II. p. 6 — letter of January 20th, 1548.
2 An appreciative account of Xavier will be found in Stephen's Essays in
Ecclesiastical Biography, pp. 120 to 158.
3 See the first 75 pages of Fasc. 4, of Ar. Port. Or. Some of the Decretos
of the Council, notably those on pages 55 — 60 dealing with the relation of
Captains of fortresses with those trading in their ports, appear to our ideas
to deal with subjects strangely outside ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
5
66 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
have any public worship, purchase anything appertaining
to their religion — whether books or other articles — and all
their priests were banished, even a twice-born Hindu
required by his caste custom to wear the sacred cord
(janeo) was forbidden to do so. Nominal rolls of all Hindus
were to be made, ioo in each roll, and fifty from each
batch were to attend alternate Sundays to hear sermons of
one hour in length on the benefits of the Christian religion. !
No compulsion was to be used to convert anyone to
Christianity, but if anyone complained that a person had
been forced into conversion, the Roman Catholic prelate
and not the civil power was to judge the complaint. If
either husband or wife was converted (no one could marry
more than one wife), the unconverted wife or husband was
to be kept in the house of some virtuous person as long
as was considered necessary in order to discover his or her
real intentions. When any infidel father died, leaving minor
children, they were to be taken over by the State to be
made Christians. 2
One of the points most strongly impressed on Viceroys
leaving Portugal for the East was that the spread of the
Christian religion was to be encouraged, not only by mis-
sionary efforts properly so called, but also by affording new
converts all temporal aid and advancement. 3 Judging from
the miscellaneous instructions issued, this order was faithfully
obeyed, as a selection from some — all before 1575 — will
show. ' When a man died without sons his nearest Christian
1 Even in Rome the Jews had only to attend one sermon a year, according
to Browning's " Holy Cross Day." It must be remembered that at this time there
were few if any mosques or temples left in Portuguese territory.
2 Mothers killed their children rather than subject them to this cruel law.
See p. 92 of Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 4.
3 See, for instance, the orders of the King to D. Luis d'At&ide, of February
27th, 1568. Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 3, p. 3.
4 The numbers given in brackets in the te\t refer to the number of the
document quoted — all from Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5.
COINAGE 67
relative could claim his property (285), and if he had no
Christian relative, it went to the Cathedral (43 5). On becoming
a Christian a native of India could at once claim all the
privileges of a born Portuguese (288), while on becoming a
Jew or a Muhamedan he was sent to the galleys for life
(524). Children or other heirs who became converts could
claim partition of any property in which they had a herit-
able right (292), and, similarly, wives could, under such
circumstances, claim all their ornaments and half their
husband's property (427). Female converts could claim
inheritance as if they had been males, to the exclusion of
other heirs (304). Hindus could not enter the village assembly
for the management of village business, and were compelled
to sell any petty village office they held (575). The arch-
bishop could turn any non-Christian he pleased out of Goa
(575)- To discourage litigation a native of India could
only compel enquiry into charges of (1) Murder, (2) Grievous
hurt, (3) Perjury, (4) Forgery (95 § 6), but a non-Christian
could only prefer a complaint of even one of these crimes
before one official in all Portuguese India, and then he
had to deposit £50 {767), this was practically denying
justice at all to non-Christians. Finally, those who were not
Christians must wear a distinctive dress, and must not ride
on a horse or in a palanquin or carry an umbrella in Goa
or its suburbs (781.) Under these circumstances it is not
surprising to learn that as early as 1561, Goa and the
surrounding islands were depopulated, and that before the
end of the century even the fertile Salsette was a desert.
(391 and Note.)
Coinage. — Indo-Portuguese coinage offers some difficulties
of its own. ' There were three classes in circulation : (1) Good —
1 Carmo Nazareth gives on his p. 7 the names of 74 coins current at
different times in Goa, and in the catalogue of his own cabinet he describes
68 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
which was current at its face value ; (2) Poor — current at
the rate of the good metal the coin contained; (3) Bad —
which was not current at all. No prudent person received
money until it had been tested by a shroff or money-changer.
Every petty governor all over India coined at least his
own copper, and travellers found that small change received
in the morning was useless at the evening's halt. It will be
convenient to take the Real, which is the Portuguese money
of account, as the standard, but this money of account has
been progressively declining in value. For clearness of
conception it is convenient to take the fractional value of
a penny worked out by Yule in his Glossary ; ' at the
same time it will be understood from the history of the
Goa coinage to be given, that the fluctuations in the value
of the real have been much more violent than these figures
would lead us to suppose.
Decimal of
one penny.
Value of a real at beginning of 16th century . .268
Value of a real at beginning of 17th century . .16
Value of a real at beginning of 18th century . .06
The value of a real now is about .035 of a penny. The
early copper coins of Goa were called Leah ; 4 leals were
worth 5 reals. There was also a local copper coinage called
bazarucos by the Portuguese (corrupted to biidgrook by the
English), and 5 of these were equal to 6 reals. In time the
bazaruco supplanted the leal. It was many years before
the Portuguese authorities started either a gold or silver
coinage of their own, and the people of Goa regarded all
their attempts with a noisy suspicion that was undoubtedly
abundantly justified.
294 varieties. There was a standing order that all items of accounts must
show the coinage in which payment was made. — Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 10,
March 23, 15 19.
1 Underheading Pardao, p. 837.
COINAGE 69
The current value of the different coins stated in terms
of the real were :
Reals.
Muzafarshahi new of 23Y2 tangas (gold) . . . 1,410
Muzafarshahi old of 21 tangas (gold) .... 1,260
San Thome Portuguese gold coin of 1 549 . . 1,000
Venezeano, Sultani, Ibrahimi 420
Cruzado 400
Pardao 360
Ashrafi of Aden and Maldives 360
Ashrafi of Ormuz, Cochin and Ceylon . . . 300
Tanga 60
Fanam 40
Vintem 20
The history of the copper coinage is a good introduc-
tion to the shorter one of the gold and silver currency.
When Albuquerque took Goa (15 10) copper was valued at
13 pardaos the quintal — 128 lbs. — and he coined that
weight of copper into 3,736 leals, which represented the true
value. l Alcagova, the short-lived Comptroller of Revenue in
15 17, calculated that 3,744 leals should be made from a
quintal of copper at a cost of 1,042 reals; the lynx-eyed
Afonso Mexia could not, however, let this pass, and he
ordered that whatever the number of leals struck, the cost
of coining a quintal of copper must never exceed 450
reals. 2 In the time of Nuno da Cunha (1529 — 38) copper
had risen to 16 pardaos the quintal, and the number of
leals coined was increased accordingly. Under his successor,
D. Garcia de Noronha (1538 — 40), copper rose to 18
pardaos — and owing to the fall in the value of money he
raised subsistence allowance (mantimento) from 4 to 6 tangas
1 13 pardaos at 360 reals each— 4,680 reals, which at 4 leals— 5 reals is
3,744 leals.
2 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 5.
70 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
{$s 4d to 8s). Martim Afonso de Sousa (1542 — 45) was the
first who tampered with the coinage. Copper was worth
from 18 to 20 pardaos the quintal, but he coined that
weight into bazarucos nominally worth 36 pardaos. As the
Portuguese lived in settlements scattered along the coast,
they were dependent upon their neighbours for the neces-
saries of life, and naturally those not living in the settlements
refused to take these coins at more than their value as
metal. Workmen declined to work and merchants to bring
goods for sale. D. Joao de Castro (1545 — 48) remedied the
abuse and reduced the number to 25 pardaos' worth. His
successors gradually lessened the size of the coin until, in
the time of D. Constantine de Braganga (1558 — 61), it had
risen to 42 pardaos' worth. As the old evils reproduced
themselves D. Francisco Coutinho (1 561 — 64) reduced the
number to 35. Matters remained fairly quiescent until the
second term of D. Luis d'Ataide (1578 — 81), when he,
" against all justice human and divine," tampered with the
coinage all round, and coined 56 pardaos' worth of bazarucos
from copper barely worth 25. The next change was back
to 42. Taking 25 pardaos the quintal as the standard
when the real was worth .268 of a penny, it was worth .16
when the same amount of copper was coined into 42 pardaos'
worth, and .06 when it was coined into 56 pardaos' worth.
The value of the real was subject, therefore, to far more
violent fluctuations than Yule's account shows, but the
figures that he gives may be taken as an approximation
to the truth for the sake of clearness. l
Albuquerque is said to have struck some silver coins;
their names never appear in mercantile transactions, and
they would seem rather to have been medals than coins. -
Garcia de Sa's new coin, the San Thome, worth about
1 The facts stated above were not before Yule when he made his calculations.
2 The words of Nunes, p. 31, imply that there was no special coinage for
COINAGE 71
£1, met with considerable opposition when first struck
in 1549, but it was worth its face value and held its
own. D. Afonso de Noronha (1550 — 54) began experi-
ments in silver coinage soon after 1550, when he issued
" Patecoons " on the pattern of pieces of 8. Their exact
value is not recorded, but was some fraction of 2,400
reals, that is of 8 Cochin ashrafis. Their originator kept
them at full value, but his successors, D. Pedro Mas-
carenhas (1554—55) an ^ Francisco Barreto (1555 — 58)
could not let the coin rest. They kept the weight
and fineness the same, but raised the nominal value of
the unit from 2,400 reals to 3,540 reals (3,300 for the
silver and 240 for the coinage). There was thus on the
silver alone a profit of 37 1 / 2 p-c. on the coining, and
genuine coins struck in the country round poured into the
Portuguese settlements. In 1566 D. Antao de Noronha tried
to stop this flood of foreign money by stopping the coining
of Patecoons in Portuguese territory, but naturally those
made outside continued to pour in until D. Luis d'Ataide
in his first term rendered them uncurrent, much to the
relief of the people of Goa, who called them the "devil's
scourge." On his second return to India (1578 — 81) he lost,
however, all the good name he had acquired, by striking
ashrafis of which five-sevenths of the weight was silver and
two-sevenths copper. This raised the exchange 50 p.c.
against Portuguese India. His successor, Fernao Telles (1 581),
remedied this abuse.
Nothing has been said of the decrease in the purchasing
power of money. Yule is undoubtedly correct in saying
Goa except copper when he wrote (1554). See also Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 2, p.
174, where it is clearly said that Albuquerque only coined copper as there
was plenty of gold aDd silver coin. See also Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, p. 326,
note, which shows that by a refinement of cupidity the debased coinage was
only received in payment of Government dues at its current and not at its
face value. Correa*s account of Albuquerque's coining must refer to medals.
72 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
that up to about i860 the purchasing power of money in
India had remained almost unaltered within historical times.
The rise there has been has taken place since that time. '
Remuneration of Officers. — The social system of the Por-
tuguese recognised roughly two classes, " (1) Fidalgoes,
(2) Soldiers; there was in India a cross division into mar-
ried and single. The higher classes were possessed of
privileges, but the lowest, that is the bachelor soldier, had
none; he was the mere sweepings of Portugal. Pay on the
Indian establishment was calculated on a rather elaborate
plan, there was (1st) Soldo, or pay of a man's rank — this
depended on classification founded chiefly on birth; (2nd)
Mantimento, or subsistence allowance, which to some extent
depended on place of service; '■ (3rd) Ordenado or pay of
an appointment. A man who received ordenado got neither
soldo nor mantimento. though a person who received soldo
generally got mantimento. In time another element grew
up which overrode all the others, and this was percalcos or
profits. A man willingly gave up everything else to keep
the profits of an appointment. As soldo could only be
drawn on a special order of the Governor and after an
audit by the central pay-office, first at Cochin and after-
wards at Goa, it was often in arrear. Mantimento could be
drawn anywhere. *
In that extraordinary monument of industry, the accounts
which Luiz de Figueiredo Falcao prepared for his master
in 1 61 2, the pay and profits of every office in India are
1 See Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 2, Nos. 54,61 — both very important papers, ami
A. Nunes Livro dos pesos e medietas e moedas. Many of the facts have Been
extracted from statements scattered up and down the historians, and complete
references would he lengthy and at the same time unsatisfactory.
2 For a more minute division see Linschoten, Vol. I. p. 187.
s Yule Glossary s. v. Batta suggests that it and Mantimento corresponded.
4 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, Nos. 10, 11.
REMUNERATION OF OFFICERS 73
scheduled. Take Sofala; the pay of the post of Captain
in three years was £8$o and the profits £ 57,000. As the
pay of an office was a matter of indifference it remained
unchanged, or even decreased, in spite of the depreciation
of money. Thus in 1550 the Captain of Ormuz received
^600 a year and £216 as the salary of his guard, which
represented the ^450 a year and the share of the cargo
fixed by Albuquerque. By 161 2 there was a considerable
change. Owing to the fall in the value of money the
Captain's pay had sunk to i?400 a year, but the pay of his
guard had risen to i? 540, and he was also allowed £ 860 as
the pay of 40 hangers-on supported out of public funds.
In the earlier voyages a man received pay from the day
of embarcation, but, commencing from about 1540, men at
arms were sent out with no pay (Soldo) ; with some it was
to commence on arrival, with some six months later, and
with some one year later. It grew to be the custom for
soldiers to receive no pay for months after they came out,
and from this a vast amount of misery resulted. The newly
arrived Portuguese (" Reynols " as they were called) were the
sport of the older inhabitants, and they had no chance of
earning an honest living ; they starved in the streets, begged
from wealthier men, hired themselves out as cut-throats or
bullies, or turned robber on their own account; some deserted
to native states and changed their religion. Certain of the
leading men kept a table open to their immediate depend-
ants who were bound to follow their patrons in all their
enterprises. When an opportunity occurred for service the
soldier fought under his patron's banner and was paid by
the King. On return from the service he produced at the
registry office (Matricola) a certificate of his Captain, which
entitled him to one from the office, and when a man obtained
enough certificates from the Matricola he returned to Por-
tugal to claim some reward for his services. The usual
74 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
form this took was the reversion of an office, but these
grants were given so lavishly that Couto tells us he met a
man of 40 who had got one of which he could not avail
himself until 30 grantees who preceded him had enjoyed
and vacated the office, When it was pointed out to him
that there was no chance of entering on the office for
nearly one hundred years he replied that at all events he
could make a good marriage and dower his son well. ' It
resulted that no troublesome questions of fitness interfered
to delay an appointment, and when a man or his heir after
long waiting did obtain the post, he made the most of his
three years' term to enrich himself.
Another method of rewarding service was by the grant
of a voyage. The licenses to make trading voyages were
valuable assets and as such they were the subject of sale,
sometimes therefore one was given to a religious or charit-
able institution. There is a case recorded at the end of
the 1 6th century where a man purchased three of these
voyages to Japan, — one from the heirs of his own father,
one from the Church of St. John in Goa, and one from the
Goa hospital which required rebuilding, and he took all
three at once. Falcao has transmitted to us their estimated
value. In 1612, voyages to Pegu, Tenasserim, Banda, Sunda
and Bengal were extinct. The China and Japan voyage was
worth £ 2 5,000; St. Thomas by Malacca, £ 5,600; Goa by
Mozambique, ,C 6,000; Moluccas, ci? 7,000; and Ceylon, ^500.
On May 2nd, 16 14, soon after Falcao's report had shown
the large profits individuals could make in India, the King
of Portugal suspended all royal grants and ordered the
Viceroy to put up for sale by public auction all commands
1 Couto, XII. I. 10. Offices were even yiven to the man (unknown) whom
such and such a woman may be pleased to many. In one such instance
after marriage, the man and his wife each sold the reversion t<> a different
person. See Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, Nos. 339 and 375.
BANISHED MEN 75
of fortresses, all other offices and all voyages, and give
them — on a vacancy occurring — to the highest bidder. The
document, which is quoted with textual incorrectness in
Bocarro, Decada 13, p. 367, will be found in full, stripped
of Bocarro's softening additions, in Fasciculo 6 of the Ar-
chivo Portuguez Oriental, No. 353, p. 1059. It stands as
one of the most remarkable state confessions of utter demo-
ralization on record.
Banished Men. — It was the custom to take out banished
men to be sent on any desperate service. Some of these
were criminals of a bad type, who wandered off, besmirched
the Portuguese name, and sometimes even caused the Por-
tuguese considerable direct trouble. Thus, Antonio Fer-
nandes, a ship's carpenter, sent out with Pedro Alvarez
Cabral, turned Muhamedan, and, as Abdulla, led the
attack on Anjadiva in 1505. ' Joao Machado, on the
other hand, did his countrymen good service. He was a
man of good family in Braga, who, disgraced in a love
affair, was banished in Pedro Alvarez Cabral's fleet for a
technical offence. He was left on the East African coast
in 1500, but wandered to India, and in 15 10, when Albu-
querque took Goa, was in the service of the Adil Shah.
At the darkest time of the defence of Goa in 1 5 1 1 , he
restored confidence to the Portuguese by deserting to them.
He was a man of education, was made thanadar of the
city in 1 5 1 3 - and was killed in a senseless expedition
organized by the Captain of Goa in 15 17. :t
1 Barros, I. 10. 4. Conea, I. 584.
2 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 1.
8 History repeats itself. In a recent war with Morocco it was stated that
a regiment of criminals had been enlisted by Spain for desperate service.
Banished men were sent out in some of the earliest English voyages to the East.
A P P E NT3 I X
The Portuguese historians seem to show that scant justice
has been done to Alvaro d'Ataide, Xavier's antagonist
at Malacca, by ecclesiastical writers. It is very doubtful
if he was doing more than insisting on his just rights
in claiming to appoint the commander of the ship for
the China voyage, while in requiring the command for
protege a Xavier was overstepping the boundary of his
province. Alvaro d'Ataide was a son of Vasco da Gama;
there are black sheep in every family and he may have
been one, but his brothers, Estavao da Gama, Christovao
da Gama and Paulo da Gama, were all men of exceptionally
high standard. There had, too, been ill blood between the
Captain and the ecclesiastic before. Xavier was closely
allied to that Governor, Martim Afonso de Sousa, who
had worked Alvaro d'Ataide a cruel wrong. All three had
come out in the same fleet, and while waiting for a wind
at Mozambique, De Sousa had suspected that d'Ataide
intended sending ahead a message to warn his brother,
Estavao da Gama, then Governor, that a successor was
on his way to oust him, as was indeed natural. On
this suspicion De Sousa deprived d'Ataide of his ship,
and kept him in close confinement for several months after
the fleet had reached India. He could not certainly have
borne good will either to De Sousa or to those whom he
could only look on as De Sousa's allies, and any intercourse
between d'Ataide and Xavier must have been interrupted
by asperities. I have not seen this noted by any writer
on Xavier's history. The facts fall within the period of
Couto's sixth decade, there is, therefore, no trustworthy
secular historian of them.
CHAPTER V
1497— 1 501
By the end of the fifteenth century, the Portuguese had,
by a series of expeditions extending over nearly a century,
explored the African coast down its whole Western face
and up some leagues of its Eastern, beyond the Cape of
Good Hope. From the notes of the overland traveller,
Covilham, they had also gained some knowledge of the
trade routes and trade centres of the Indian Ocean. In the
last decade of that century, then, the Portuguese were in a
position to join their land and sea explorations and make
the final effort to discover the sea route to India.
The command of the expedition organized to outflank
the Muhamedan trade monopoly by opening out the passage
by the Cape of Good Hope, was entrusted to Vasco da
Gama, a man of 37 years of age, of whose previous history
we are ignorant. His personality had more influence on
the early connection of the Portuguese with India than
the mere events of his first voyage. He is described as a
man of medium height, stout build and florid complexion,
harsh in manner, bold in attack, much to be feared in his
anger, and with no feeling of mercy to temper his justice.
His physical powers of endurance, and his energy were
exceptional, and his firmness indomitable. Combined with
his inflexibility his temper was cruel, violent and passionate,
— he could wait for years for his revenge, and then take
one at which the world still shudders. He was accompanied
78 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
by his elder brother, Paulo da Gama, a man whose sweetness
of character was curiously reproduced in more than one of
Vasco da Gama's sons, more especially in that noble
Christovao da Gama, who led the expedition into Abyssinia
in 1 541. The two brothers were inseparable, and it is to
Paulo and his influence over the crews that the success
of the voyage was to a great extent due. His kindness
and helpfulness to those sick of that dreadful disease —
scurvy — which raged on the ships, was ever after held in
affectionate remembrance. Paulo died at Terceira on the
homeward voyage, broken down by the hardships he had
undergone. Vasco da Gama appears never to have
recovered from the blow, for the more repellant features
of his character became from this time accentuated.
The three vessels which formed Vasco da Gama's command
varied from 60 to 150 tons burden, J they left Portugal on
July 8th, 1497, and anchored off Kappat, a small village 8
miles north of Calicut, on May 17th, 1498. The Portuguese
had treated the Arab colonists with whom they came in
contact on the east coast of Africa with the same high-
handed disregard of all rights which they had always
shown in their dealings with the negroes of the west
coast, and there can be no doubt but that news of this
had preceded Da Gama to India and predisposed against
him that powerful body of Muhamedan traders which formed
such an important element in the society of the Malabar
Coast. This predisposition, however, merely anticipated
the inevitable. The Portuguese came to the East with the
determination to wrest from the Muhamedans their commercial
advantages, and whether the latter learned this earlier or
later mattered certainly but little in the eventual history.
At the same time the fact of this speedy communication
1 I have added i/5th to the nominal tonnage to reduce it to the denomina-
tion of the present day.
1497 — l 5 QI 79
between the two distant countries is not only interesting
in itself, but it also explains some of the difficulties which
Da Gama encountered.
The first act of the Samuri, the Hindu ruler of Calicut,
was, however, friendly. The south-west monsoon was
blowing in its first strength, and on that exposed coast
there were few harbours safe from its fury. At Pandarani
Kollam, a few miles north of Kappat, however, lay then
and lies still one of those remarkable mud banks which
form one of the natural features of this coast. ' Although
in very heavy weather the sea sometimes makes a breach,
still, partly from the shelter of the bank and partly from
the effects of the oil discharged through the mud by natural
vents, there is between the bank and the shore a stretch
of smooth sea where in ordinary years vessels may lie in
safety. The Samuri's pilot conducted the ships to this
anchorage, and the first dispute with their new acquaintances
occurred over the berthing of the vessels. The pilot
considered that the only safe holding was close in shore ;
Da Gama, fearing too close proximity to an unknown
people adhered to his own view, and the ships lay some
distance out. The long row from the shore to the ships
on one occasion when, one squally evening, the shore
boatmen refused to take him off to his vessels, led to the
so-called "imprisonment" of Da Gama.
On the invitation of the Samuri, Da Gama with thirteen
companions landed to travel overland to Calicut, a distance
of twelve miles, to visit him. 2 Misled by the idea that all
natives of India (excluding of course Muhamedan settlers)
1 For more about these mud banks see Logan, "Malabar", Vol. I. p. 36. The
H.E.I.C. ship, "Morning Star", took refuge in the monsoon of 1793 behind
this very bauk— the storms were unusually violent, the sea breached the
bank and the ship was wrecked.
2 Da Gama's ships never visited Calicut.
80 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
were Christians, the little party worshipped in a Hindu
temple, though they certainly marvelled at the frescoes of
the saints whose teeth projected a thumb's length from
their mouths, and who had four or five arms apiece. They
mistook the janeo, or sacred cord of the Hindus, for a
stole. This visit had not a successful termination — Da Gama
had no present to offer the Samuri. " Did you come to
discover stones or men? If men, and your king is so
great — why did he not send a present?" asked the angry
ruler. The permission to trade which Da Gama requested
was only granted in a very indeterminate form. That the
Muhamedan traders seized the opportunity given them by
the irritation of the Samuri to inform him of the proceedings
of Da Gama on the African Coast, is certain, they could
hardly under the circumstances be blamed for so doing.
In spite of this his conduct to the Portuguese continued to
be marked by considerable courtesy. Da Gama's wares do
not appear to have been well selected for the Calicut
market, and this under the circumstances is not surprising.
When five days after his return to his ships Da Gama
complained to the Samuri that the Muhamedans would not
buy his goods at his own price, the Samuri first sent a
broker to help, and this failing, he, towards the end of June,
conveyed them at his own cost to Calicut.
The relations of the Portuguese with the people of the
country continued very friendly, the shore-going parties
met with a most hospitable reception, and the ships were
encumbered with the numbers that came off. ' It is interesting
to learn that even then the population pressed so closely
on the means of subsistence, that none of the sailors could
appear with a piece of biscuit in his hand that it was not
begged from him by children or even grown up people.
1 "Que nos aborreciam", says the Roteiro.
1497 — t 5 ot 8l
By the middle of August, when the strength of the
south-west monsoon had begun to decline, Da Gama
prepared for his return to Europe. He had disposed of
but few of his goods, but he had secured specimens of the
articles obtainable in the Calicut market, and had gathered
a good deal of information as to what was most in demand
there. He appears to have been assisted to some extent
by an Italian who had then lived on the Malabar Coast
for nearly twenty years, but chiefly by a Tunis Muhamedan,
who could speak Spanish, whom the Portuguese called
Mongaide. Moncaide so openly took their side that he
found it convenient to leave for Europe in Da Gama's
ships. The expedition did not, however, sail without a
further misunderstanding with the Samuri. Da Gama,
seeing the country people friendly, asked permission to
leave a factor and his merchandise in Calicut. This request
was met by a demand for customs' dues, and, failing im-
mediate payment, both Da Gama's messenger and all the
goods on shore were seized. Da Gama in reprisal captured
a dozen natives of the country, who ventured on board his
ships, and although after a few days the Portuguese and
the goods were returned, Da Gama eventually left the
Coast with five of his captives still prisoners on his ships.
Having done so much to render the position of his successor
difficult, he finally sailed on August 29th, 1498.
He spent some days of September refitting at the Anjadiva
Islands off the Indian coast, ! and while there captured a
Grenadine Jew, who, enslaved in his youth and made a
Muhamedan, had drifted to India and was then employed as
1 Anjadiva Islands have their place iu English history. When, in i66i,an
English force was sent to take possession of Bombay under the then recent
treaty, the local authorities refused to acknowledge the orders from Portugal.
Pending diplomatic negotiations Lord Marlborough landed the troops on
Anjadiva. Sir Abraham Shipman, the General, and 300 of the 500 troops
died there in a few months.
6
82 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
a spy on Da Gama. As Gaspar da India or Gaspar d'Almeida
he played a distinct, though subordinate part, in the events
of the next eleven years.
Two of Da Gama's original ships reached Portugal after
an absence of two years, with 55 survivors of the 170 who
had started on the expedition.
Poets and even historians have surrounded the compara-
tively simple facts of this voyage with fictions, but stripped
of its romance, the story does not suffer in interest. It
stands out as one of the epoch-making landmarks in the
world's history. Apart from its effect on the course of
events, the first meeting since the days of Alexander, 1,800
years before, of the civilizations of the East and West
must always retain its interest. That the Samuri failed to
grasp the significance of the arrival of three weather-beaten
ships on his coast is true, but many generations elapsed
before Indian rulers of far greater political sagacity than
he, understood fully what the advent of strangers from over
the sea did mean. Throughout the whole stay of the Por-
tuguese the Samuri showed no signs of treachery, he was
an Oriental ruler bound by custom, and when those customs
were violated by navigators coming to his harbours, he
enforced them with the means at his disposal. On the other
hand, Da Gama's conduct in carrying off the 5 men he
had entrapped on board his ships is indefensible.
Vasco da Gama returned to Europe with ideas strangely
incorrect as to the India he had visited, for to him all the
East that was not Muhamedan continued to be Christian.
Hindus, Buddhists, Syrian Christians and pagans were alike
confounded. ' Considering the scanty intercourse that he
and the chief men of his fleet had with the shore, this is
not surprising.
1 See list of the Indian countries at the end of the Koteiro.
1497 — : 5 01 8 3
No time was lost after the return of Vasco da Gama in
utilizing his discoveries. The new fleet of which Pedro
Alvarez Cabral was the commander, consisted of thirteen
vessels, carried 1,200 men and started on March 9th, 1500.
Among the captains were Bartholomew Dias, who first
rounded the Cape, and Nicholas Coelho, the companion of
Da Gama. Even at this early date rumours of the gold
mines of Southern Central Africa had reached Europe, and
one of the objects of the expedition was to explore them.
The sailing orders were very voluminous ' and assumed
that the Samuri and all the inhabitants of India, save the
Muhamedans, were Christians, but Christians who required
teaching. Cabral was to land Baltazar and the other Mala-
baris whom Da Gama had brought home, who had been
instructed in the Christianity of the West. 2 Cabral was not
to land without hostages, and he was to endeavour to
awaken the Samuri to his duty as a Christian prince, to
turn all the Muhamedans out of the country. Failing a
satisfactory settlement with the Samuri, he was to leave
Calicut and go on to " Callimur," by which Cananor is
apparently meant. After all the minute instructions, he was
given a discretion to use a free hand if he found anything
contrary to the custom of the country in them. Unfortun-
ately for Cabral, he obeyed his orders to the letter and
neglected the saving clause.
The misfortunes of the unlucky expedition began early ;
one ship parted company off Cape Verde, the remainder
stretched across the Atlantic to take advantage of the winds,
and discovered Brazil. Another ship had to be sent home
1 It is interesting to compare the reality in An. Mar. e Col., 5th series,
p. 208, and 3rd series, p. 351, with Barros, I. 5. 1, who has tinted them as
he considers they should have been.
2 It is certainly remarkable that in the process of instructing the Indians
it had not been discovered that they were not Christians, but the fact remains.
84 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
with the news of this discovery. The remaining eleven
left the American coast for the Cape on May 3rd ; on the
23rd the ships handed their sails for a north-easter, the
next day was a dead calm and they hoisted them again ;
a threatening cloud came up unnoticed, and the sails were
left flapping against the masts. Four vessels, including that
of Bartholomew Dias, were overturned in the squall and
all on board perished. Seven ships then rounded the
Cape — one ran up the coast of Madagascar, which island
it discovered, and reached Berbera, with many of the crew
sick. As the Arabs seemed friendly, fifty of the sick and
ten sound men were put on shore, leaving twenty too ill
to move and about the same number of able-bodied men
on board. The Arabs, seeing their chance, killed those on
shore. Fortunately for themselves, those on board, warned
by the tumult, were able to cut their cable, hoist some
sail, and get an offing. When at length she reached
Europe, only six of her original crew were alive.
On August 7th Pedro Alvarez Cabral, with his six
vessels, started for India from the African Coast, and
reached Calicut on September 1 3th. Acting on his instructions,
he sent on shore the five returning Indians, all low caste
men, dressed as Europeans; he did not know that the
Samuri could not even look on such polluted wretches.
On September 18th Cabral and the Samuri met at a house
near the shore. The latter had yielded the — to him —
unusual demand for hostages, and two Nairs remained on
board while Cabral was on shore. A request by the Samuri
at the end of the interview, that the commander should
return to his ships to release the hostages to allow them
to eat, made Cabral, who thought he was being flouted,
lose his temper; he did not, of course, know the strict
caste rule. As he was leaving the Samuri in a rage, he
was told that in consequence of an oral message the hostages
H97—1501 8 5
had tried to escape from the ship, but had failed. Leaving
the Portuguese and his goods on shore to their fate, he
hurried back.
The following day the Malabaris put off with the abandon-
ed Portuguese, and those in the ships started to meet them
with the hostages. The two sets of boats remained facing
each other all day, neither side trusting the other; the
silence was only broken by the dismal wails of the captive
Portuguese to their friends to save them. The next day
the Samuri shewed his manliness by returning the Portuguese
and the goods in an unarmed boat. No further intercourse
followed for some days, and then a factor, Aires Correa,
was sent to arrange a peace ; the negotiations were long,
and it was not until two and a half months had elapsed
since their first coming that peace was concluded; the
terms, which are not known, were engraved on plates of
metal. The position of the Portuguese at this time was
very favourable, they had a factory and leave to fly their
own flag. '
Cabral was suffering from intermittent fever, and the
worries incidental to his position overwhelmed him ; every
quintal of pepper cost him a quartan fit, as one writer puts
it. The Portuguese were ignorant of the ways of the country,
and the interests of the larger portion of the Muhamedan
traders were opposed to theirs. It is no matter of surprise
therefore that, at the end of three months from the date of
their arrival, only two ships were loaded. The Portuguese
arrogated the sole right to buy pepper, and finding the
supply came in but slowly, they complained to the Samuri
that the Muhamedan traders were secretly loading their
vessels with what should have come to them. It is not
1 The Samuri also got them to bring to a ship laden with elephants,
when he wanted to buy one. A great deal has been made out of what was
apparently a simple incident.
86 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
quite certain exactly what reply they got, apparently it was
to the effect that the Portuguese might take any pepper
they found, provided they paid cost price for it. Whatever
it was, no attempt was made to allow its tenor to be
generally known, but the Portuguese at once proceeded
to act on their interpretation of it.
On the morning of December 16th they seized a ship
belonging to the Arabs that was at anchor in the harbour.
The news of the outrage spread quickly through the city,
and the riot that ensued swelled so quickly that the Italian,
Bonadjuto de Albao, ' though he ran to warn the factory,
only reached there just ahead of the mob. The people
had hitherto been so friendly that] the seventy or eighty
Portuguese on shore had only seven or eight cross-bows
and their swords : among them were Father Henry, after-
wards Bishop of Ceita, two other priests, and the anonymous
pilot who wrote the account in Ramusio. With their scanty
weapons the Portuguese made a desperate defence, but the
Malabaris had lost all fear of death, and literally pulled the
factory to pieces. Aires Correa and some thirty or forty
Portuguese were killed — some thirty, including those above
named, escaped to the ships, mostly wounded. Some of the
wounded were sheltered by the townspeople, and were alive
years afterwards. The two children of Aires Correa, who
were playing in a harem with the children of a friendly
Muhamedan, were saved ; one of them lived to make him-
self a reputation as a soldier. At the commencement of
the riot, Correa had signalled to Cabral ; the latter was in
a fever fit, and thinking it merely a factory brawl did
nothing. The boats were sent off in time to pick up
1 This is the Portuguese form of the name. lie was a Venetian who had
lived twenty-two years in India, having originally gone there with Francisco
Marcillo, a Venetian consul in Alexandria, who was 00 a mission. He went
to Europe with Albuquerque in 1503 nad ri turned with Almeida.
H97— -^o 1 8 7
a few stragglers, with energy more might have been
saved. '
Cabral was now in a most difficult position, he even
waited twenty-four hours in case, peace might still be pos-
sible; but when all hope of this had gone he showed his
energy by seizing 600 boatmen, sailors belonging to ships
from other parts, who had nothing to do with the quarrel,
and slaughtering them ; many were roasted alive in their
own boats. 2 Calicut was bombarded for two days, the
destruction of the flimsy houses was not much loss, but it
was said that many people were killed. As the recoil from
the firing did more damage to the ships than the bullets
did to the town, the bombardment was stopped.
The Portuguese position was now very serious, the season
had nearly passed, only two of the ships had any cargo at
all, and they knew of no port on the Indian coast where
they could safely pass the monsoon. In one of the coun-
cils, Gaspar da India suggested Cochin as a place where
they might possibly get cargo. They were off that port
on December 24th, a message elicited a promise of help ;
prices were arranged without any formal treaty or meeting
with the Raja,— and in less than a fortnight the ships were
laden. 3
On January 9th, 1501, came the news that a Calicut fleet
of 80 or 85 ships was sailing down the coast to attack
Cabral. Cabral refused all offers of help from Cochin, and
that night, extinguishing all his lights, stole away. He left
so hurriedly that he took with him some Nair hostages —
1 Albuquerque lays the blame for this catastrophe on the Portuguese.
— Cartas, p. 130.
2 Three elephants were killed in one of the boats and the flesh salted for
the crews.
s While here, there came to the ships from Cranganor two Christians,
Mathias who died soon after, and Joseph who visited Europe. -See Grynaeus,
u Novis orbis regio", under head of Josephus Indus, for his account.
88 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
men changed every day during the lading — and left behind
Goncalo Gil Barbosa of Santarem, the factor, and some
thirty Portuguese in the factory. Among those thus
abandoned was Duarte Barbosa, whose work on the
African and Malabar Coasts has been translated into
English. ' He was brother-in-law of Magalhaens and ac-
companied that great man on his voyage round the world,
and was killed with him.
The following day Cabral and the Samuri's fleet lay
becalmed in sight of each other, but when the slant of
wind came the prudent Cabral sailed away. Passing Cananor,
the Raja there offered to supply any deficiencies in the
cargo; the offer was accepted, and this was the beginning
of the long connection of the Portuguese with that place.
The troubles of Pedro Alvarez Cabral did not end when
he left the Indian coast. On the night of February 1 2th —
1 3th, the ship commanded by Sancho de Toar was wrecked,
but the crew was saved. Five laden vessels reached Portugal
in safety, and the cargo was so rich that it more than
repaid the cost of the whole fleet.
The voyage of Pedro Alvarez Cabral is very important
because, through the incapacity and ineptitude of its
commander, the breach with the Samuri became irreparable,
and because the discovery of Cochin entirely altered the
policy of the Portuguese. Cochin harbour was far superior
to the open roadstead of Calicut, and the magnificent inland
communications it had with the pepper country were unlike
anything obtaining at its rival. Calicut owed its importance
partly to the ability of its rulers, but mainly to the assist-
ance they received from the Muhamedan traders that
frequented it. By adopting Cochin, therefore, the Portuguese
1 Published by the Hakluyt Society. Caspar Correa has a great deal in
praise of his linguistic accomplishments.
1497 — 1 5° I 8<)
were certain of having the chief on their side, as he could
look to them only to support his position.
The fleet of 1501 under Joao da Nova was a trading
fleet of 4 vessels, which went and returned in safety. Da
Nova heard at Mozambique of the events of Cabral's stay,
and avoided Calicut, though he had a brush with the
Samuri's flotilla. St. Helena was discovered on the return
voyage.
CHAPTER VI
1502— 1504
The information brought by Pedro Alvarez Cabral changed
the whole policy of the Portuguese towards India. It was
recognized that the Indians were not Christians, and that
Cochin was the natural rival of Calicut. Some idea, too, of
the natives and traders of Southern India as a fighting
force had been gained. With the consent of the Pope, the
King of Portugal assumed at this time the high-sounding
titles of Lord of the Navigation, Conquest and Commerce
of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia and India, and to enforce the
claims these titles carried with them, Cabral was first
appointed to the command of the largest fleet hitherto sent,
but the feeling of his inefficiency grew so strong that he
was put on one side in favour of Da Gama. The fleet that
was to command the sea, and divert all the trade of the
East with Europe to Portugal, consisted of twenty ships.
Fifteen started on February 10th, under Da Gama, and five
of these, under Vincent Sodre, his relative, were to remain
permanently in the Indian Seas ; five other vessels, under
Estavao da Gama, another relative, left on April 1st.
After reaching the Indian coast where Anjadiva was the
rendezvous, ' the ships spread out to intercept a rich ves-
1 Thome Lopes, who has left such a valuable record of this voyage, was
in the Ruy Mendes de BritOj Captain Joao tie Buona Gracia. This ship was
one of the last to join at Anjadiva, when she caused considerable excitement
Da (lama, thinking she was a Red Sea ship, hurriedly left Mass to attack
1 502-1504 91
sel known to be on its way from the Red Sea. She was
met with on Sept. 29th, and found to carry 240 men besides
many women and children. ' She made no defence, pos-
sibly on account of the women and children, possibly because
the 10 or 12 wealthy Calicut merchants on board, whose
leader was called according to the Portuguese, Joar Afanqui, 2
expected to ransom her. None of Joar's offers, however, were
accepted ; all the men were disarmed and everyone was
told to give up what property he pleased. The boats of
the fleet were next ordered to dismantle the Muhamedan
ship ; her sails, rigging and rudder were removed and she
was set on fire, but the Muhamedans extinguished the
conflagration, collected the very few arms that were left,
prepared to sell their lives dearly, and beat off the boats
sent to rekindle the flames. Vasco da Gama, says Lopes,
looked on through his port-hole and saw the women bringing
up their gold and their jewels and holding up their babies
to beg for mercy, but there was no mercy.
Joao de Buona Gracia was ordered on October 3rd to
capture the Muhamedan vessel by boarding. " It was a
day I shall remember all my life," says Lopes. ' Though
they grappled, they could not board, the sides were high,
and as they disdained to wear armour to fight unarmed
men they were beaten below by showers of stones, and
only now and again could they shoot one of their opponents
with a cross-bow bolt. The Muhamedans cared neither
for death nor wounds; they plucked out the arrows, even
her. Lopes was told that on the way across Da Gama had gone far north
towards the house of " Mecca ", and entered a river where was a town called
Calimal, where the people were friendly. The author of Calcoen calls it
Combaen on the Colar River. It is not clear what place is meant.
1 The author of Calcoen says 380 men and many women and children ;
Lopes has been followed — the number would only approximately be known.
2 Jauhar Effendi.
s See the account in Thome Lopes, beginning at page 179.
92 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
from their own bodies, to throw back. By evening the Por-
tuguese captain was badly wounded and his battered helmet
torn from his head, the forecastle was entered and captured,
the sailors began to fling themselves into the sea, and the
few defenders of the ship would have been overwhelmed
had not another ship — the "Joia" — drawn off the attention
of the Muhamedans by a feint of boarding, and given the
" Ruy Mendes de Brito" breathing time to escape. For four
more days and four more nights the Portuguese followed
the doomed ship, firing into her with their bombards. As
they were on the point of giving up the attack in despair,
a traitor swam off and offered to fire her if they would
spare his life, his offer was accepted and he became a
slave ; the ship was burned with all in her, save a few children. '
It is difficult to exaggerate the horror of that death-agony,
prolonged for eight days.
Calicut was reached on October 29th : Da Gama refused
to listen to any suggestions of peace until the Muhame-
dans were turned out of the country, and naturally these
terms were not accepted. Calicut, said the Samuri, had always
been a free port, and should remain so ; if they wished for
trade, on the security of his word, they could have it ; if
not, they must go. Meanwhile the fishermen, thinking there
was peace for them at least, had gone out to fish, but Da
Gama captured them and also the coast sailors from the rice
vessels to the number of 800 men. On November 1st the
Portuguese bombarded the town at their pleasure, till near
nightfall. The Malabaris had two inferior guns mounted
with which to reply, but they could fire them but seldom,
and they could not aim. If Da Gama's name had not
1 Correa says 20 children were saved, and a hunch-hacked pilot to tell
the Samuri. Lopes agrees that some children were saved. Perhaps the hunch-
back was the traitor. Calcoen says nothing of any survivors.
1502 — 1504 93
been marked by his conduct to the pilgrim ship, his treat-
ment of his 800 prisoners would for ever have branded
his reputation ; he hanged them at the yard-arms, cut off
their hands and heads, loaded them in a vessel and allowed
it to drift ashore. ' All that night the shore was thronged
with the crowds searching for the remains of their murdered
friends. The bombardment was continued on November
2nd, over 400 shot being thrown into the town; on the
third Da Gama left for Cochin.
Vincent Sodre, while left behind in command of six
vessels and a caravel, patrolling the coast, did an act whose
consequences involved his nation a few years later in some
trouble. The Raja of Cananor had a dispute with a Muham-
edan merchant, "Mayimama Marakkar", and on the com-
plaint of the Raja, Sodre grossly outraged him. The
merchant from that moment plotted his revenge, and he
got it. He was in the Egyptian fleet that attacked D. Lou-
renco in Chaul in 1508, and though he lost his own life in
the encounter, the Portuguese flag-ship was destroyed and
its commander killed.
At Cochin the Raja was still sulking at the kidnapping
of the hostages by Cabral, but Da Gama carried matters
with a high hand, beating down the rates as he had done at
Cananor. " He organized the Cochin factory, and strengthened
that at Cananor by a palisade across the neck of the pro-
montory. :i In this, the first voyage in which a definite claim
to the dominion of the seas was put forward, and a definite
war to the death with the Muhamedans was declared,
Da Gama gave a term of merciless cruelty to the Portu-
1 Correa's account is far more horrible. It is to be hoped that he exagge-
rated the cruelties to exalt his hero.
2 These low rates caused much trouble. The King of Portugal could only
get refuse pepper; the good went to those who paid a fair rate.
3 Lopes says that while he was at Cochin the Raja impaled three Muham-
edans who sold a cow to the Portuguese.
94 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
guese policy, exceeding even the cruelty of that age, of
which he must bear the odium. The cargo ships under Da
Gama reached Portugal on September ist, 1503.
The departure of Da Gama was the signal the Samuri
awaited to commence action against the Portuguese factory in
Cochin. He sent several envoys to work on the Raja's caste
and religious feelings to induce him to abandon the Portuguese,
but in vain. Before Da Gama had left it was certain that
the Samuri would revenge himself on Cochin ; and the former
had assured the Raja of Cochin that Sodre had been left
to support him. The Portuguese both in Cananor and
Cochin endeavoured to induce the latter to remain on the
coast, but to all representations he turned a deaf ear. His
excuse was that in the creeks, in the monsoon months,
his ships could be burned ; he forgot that the honour of his
nation was worth many ships. When he started for his
cruising ground at the mouth of the Red Sea, it is to their
honour that two of his captains preferred to give up the
command of their ships rather than abandon their coun-
trymen in Cochin.
Sodre was successful in his object, and took several rich
prizes. ' On April 20th his squadron put into a bay in one
of the Curia Muria islands. In May the Portuguese were
warned that a gale from the North, to which the bay was
exposed, would be on them soon, ' and that their only
chance of safety lay in running to the opposite side of the
island. Three of the ships left while it was yet time ; but
Sodre with his brother, Bras Sodre, remained, for he
imagined that possibly the advice was given to save mer-
chant vessels that might be expected. When he saw the
1 From one of them the Portuguese first learned the importance of coir
for ropes.
- Correa says that the islanders knew by the movements of shoals of fish
that the gale was coming.
1502 — 1504 95
islanders moving their own houses from the shore, it was
too late, for the wind had fallen to a calm and a long oily
sea was rolling into the bay. He did what was possible,
but the wind came up from the offing, Vincent Sodre's
ship was driven on shore, the masts sloped seaward, and all
on board perished. Bras Sodre was more fortunate; his
ship was wrecked, but the crew escaped. '
Affairs in Cochin went on badly. The people were
opposed to their Raja's policy, but he, with rare good faith,
refused to abandon the Portuguese ; he refused also to
allow them to retire to Cananor, or even to allow them to
venture themselves in the fight. On March 31st and April
3rd the Samuri was defeated by the troops of the Raja of
Cochin, but in a later battle at the Eddapalli ford the latter
was defeated, and three of his nephews, including the heir
apparent, Narain, were killed. Public feeling ran higher
than ever against the Portuguese, but in his retreat to the
Island of Vaipeen, a sanctuary the Samuri dared not violate,
he took them with him. "' The Cochin territory was overrun,
and the sacred stone at which the Samuri was made the
Lord of the Southern Malabar States, was removed from
Cochin to Eddapalli. s
Only 200 of Narain's immediate following escaped from
the disastrous battle in which he was killed. As they had
survived their master they shaved off all their hair, even
to their eyebrows, and devoted themselves to death. 4 They
made their way to Calicut territory where they slaughtered
all they met; twenty survived to reach the neighbourhood
1 In some long-winded sailing orders of 1508 Vincent Sodre's fate is
mentioned to point a moral. — An. Mar. e Col., 3rd series, p. 491.
2 The two Italian gun-founders, Joao Maria and Pero Antonio, deserted
from the Portuguese at this time. Their assistance to the Samuri was invaluable.
3 For more about this stone see page 251.
4 Castanheda uses " Chaver ", the proper word as applied to them ; the usual
Portuguese word is "Amoucos."
96 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
of the town, killing as the chance offered. In turn they
were killed off one by one, until in five years the last was
destroyed. ' In September the reinforcements from Europe
came. As Indian affairs were considered finally settled by the
establishment of factories in Cochin and Cananor, no large
fleet was sent in 1 503. Three ships under Afonso d' Albuquerque,
afterwards surnamed the Great, sailed on April 6th ; three
under his cousin, Francisco d' Albuquerque, on April 14th,
and a third squadron under Antonio de Saldanha still later.
The discovery of Saldanha Bay has kept alive Saldanha's
memory which else might well be forgotten.
Francisco d'Albuquerque, with the loss of one ship,
reached India before his cousin, to find the Raja of Cochin
and the Portuguese still in sanctuary. He succeeded in
ejecting the Samuri from the immediate outskirts of Cochin,
and then, with the Raja's permission, began to build the
first fortress the Portuguese had in India. On the arrival
of Afonso d'Albuquerque the remainder of the Cochin
territory was reduced, but the very Homeric battles of the
operations are of little interest except as the occasion for
Duarte Pacheco to acquaint himself with the field where
he was to reap so much renown. s As the result of these
defeats the Samuri sued for peace, which the Raja of Cochin
was anxious to conclude.
The wishes of an ally who had put everything to the
stake could not be ignored ; the loyalty of the Raja to the
Europeans was certainly extraordinary, for up to this time
his only experience of Portuguese honour had been that
Cabral had carried his hostages to Europe, and that Sodre,
to go on a piratical cruise, had abandoned him to his fate.
1 A similar case occurred in Cochin in Jorge Cabral's time ; see p. 323.
2 The battles resembled massacres rather than anything else: in one, for
instance, eight thousand of the enemy are said to have been killed to three
Portuguese.
1 502—1504 97
Peace was concluded on the condition that the Samuri
should pay 1,500 bahars of pepper; 1 and the heir- apparent
of the Samuri came in person to Cranganor to deliver it.
There was no dispute on the first consignment, but on the
pretext that the second was overdue the Portuguese at-
tacked some laden boats, and in the fight six of the
Samuri's men were killed. The Portuguese, who in reality
did not want peace, refused all satisfaction, and war began
again. Duarte Pacheco, with ninety men and some small
vessels, was left to defend Cochin, and on January 31st, 1504,
the Albuquerques started. Francisco d'Albuquerque and
Nicolas Coelho (the companion of Vasco da Gama) were lost ;
where or how was never known. The vessel of Afonso
d'Albuquerque and one other reached Portugal in safety.
The defence of Cochin by Duarte Pacheco against the
whole power of the Samuri is one of the most brilliant
feats of arms that illustrates Portuguese history in the East.
A review of his position when the homeward-bound fleet
left, must have shown him that, though very difficult, it was
not quite hopeless. The larger part of the native population
was against him, but later experience proved, even if his earlier
experience had not taught him, that on such auxiliaries no
reliance could be placed. Cochin could nominally dispose
of 30,000 men, — of these 8,000 only were faithful to their Raja,
the remainder were actively hostile. The country round Cochin
did not produce enough grain to support its population ; there
were patches of cultivation, but rice, the staple food of the
people, had to be imported from the Coromandel Coast, and
was distributed throughout the country by Muhamedan
traders on whom householders depended for their daily
supplies. These traders, at whose head was one Muhamad
Marakkar, could therefore, if hostile, create a famine in
1 A Cochin bahar was a little over 3 cwts.
98 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Cochin. By a judicious mixture of threats and cajolery
Pacheco got the headman's family into Vaipeen, where they
were hostages, and Muhamad Marakkar himself was of the
greatest help to Pacheco throughout the operations.
The Samuri was advancing at the head of 60,000 men
against Pacheco's hundred ; but all Eastern armies had vast
numbers of foot-men, almost unarmed, among whom
immense slaughter was made in every battle. It was far,
indeed, from uncommon for a ruler, starting on a campaign,
to burn his capital, and command all the inhabitants to
follow his armies, where the women and children were at
least pledges for the fidelity of their male relatives. In
efficiency of arms Pacheco's advantage was almost incal-
culable, and he had, too, the advantage of information. The
spy system, favoured by the caste organisation, was so
perfect in both the camps that either side knew exactly
what his opponents were doing. Thus, while Pacheco and
his Portuguese could keep their own counsel, they could
learn what the Samuri was planning. In Calicut, also,
Pacheco had Roderigo Reynol and the Portuguese from
Cabral's time, as well as friendly natives, all of whom
regularly corresponded with him.
The season of the year was somewhat in his favour, the
rains — when active operations would be difficult — were near,
and when they were over reinforcements might be expected.
As Pacheco could forecast the Samuri's movements the
configuration of the country helped him, for it was a point
of honour with the latter never to change the direction of
his march when once that had been definitely fixed. ' The
Cochin frontier was defended, and the territory to some
extent intersected, by salt-water creeks and channels, which
were fordable at a few places at low water; at others, on
1 Porquc avia por injuria deixar de ir por aquellc posso por amor dc Duarte
Pacheco que lho defendia.— Castanheda, I. 70.
1502-1504 99
the other hand, there were ferries practicable for a certain
time at high tide ; in these channels the tide ran strongly.
It may have been for this reason, combined with the little
skill of the boatmen, or more probably from the Nair
custom of fighting in close serried ranks, that no very
serious attempt was made to cross the stream in boats.
The Samuri's object was to capture the fort just erected by
the Portuguese, and to use it against them to prevent their
again landing in Cochin, and it was practically certain that
his advance would be over the Eddapalli ford. ' This ford
was knee-deep at low water, except then impassable, a
crossbow-shot long, with deep water at either end.
The preparations for the defence were kept secret until
the Samuri was definitely committed to attacking it. On
various pretexts posts 12 feet long, sharpened at one end,
and fitted with cross pieces, were got ready ; so that when
the time came a stockade was quickly erected in mid-channel,
running the whole length of the ford. At low tide the
posts showed five feet above the water, and room was left
between them for lance-thrusts, and even for the use of a
small field-piece. At either end of the ford there was a
caravel and some attendant boats, all with artillery, and
strengthened with coils of rope and mantlets to fend off
arrows. The approach to the ford was so narrow that the
assailants could make no use of their preponderating strength,
but crowded together, offered a fair mark to the Portuguese
artillery.
The first attempt to cross was made on Palm Sunday,
March 31st. The position was impregnable to a front attack
with the arms the Samuri's men possessed ; apart from that,
their strategy was good. An advance was made on either
flank by 20 boats, to draw off the artillery fire of the
1 Repelim of the Portuguese.
ioo THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
caravels and the boats, while a storming party of 200 men with
hatchets and mallets to demolish the stockade, supported by a
column of 1 1,000 Nairs made the direct attack. The Samuri's
artillery could only project stones as hard as a man could
throw them, and the Portuguese guns decided the day's
contest. Of the boats 21 were destroyed and three captured.
The small body of defenders suffered little inconvenience
except from the crowding of their antagonists. There were
further attacks on Good Friday (April 5th) and on the
following Wednesday, which were repulsed with even
greater ease.
Of the many attacks of the next 3V2 months, the most
serious were, first, that in which the Samuri attempted to cross
contemporaneously both the Eddapalli and the Vallanjaka
ford (a little used one to which a road had to be cut), that
compelled Pacheco to divide his small force ; and secondly,
an attack in the end of June at which certain lofty castles,
each on two boats, the invention of one Khwaja Ali to
command the caravels and the stockade, were used. To meet
this last attack Pacheco prepared booms; some of the
castles could not be steered, and these were caught on
the booms and burned, while the rest were knocked into
matchwood by the guns. A night attack was planned on
the advice of the Italians, but it was contrary to the genius
of the Nairs, and of the Samuri's force one-half furiously
attacked the other half in the darkness, and many were
killed before the mistake was discovered. To crown all
the other disasters, a terrible outbreak of cholera swept
through the Samuri's camp, kept too long in one place,
and carried off 13,000 men.
Pacheco's gallant defence inspired even the low caste
men to fight for their homes. A body of some 2,000 Nairs
crossed by a seldom used and unguarded ford, to find
themselves in an extensive rice swamp at the side of a
1502—1504 IOX
creek, through which they had to get to take Pacheco in
the rear. This rice swamp was divided up into fields by
narrow earthen banks that were the only available paths.
The fields were irrigated by opening small sluices in these
banks. At the time the Nairs began to cross, some polers,
the lowest of all the castes, were working in the fields,
and when the former were well entangled in the swamp
they were attacked by the latter with the tools of their
husbandry. That a poler should dare even to come into
the presence of a Nair was almost incredible, and so amazed
were the latter, and so afraid of ceremonial defilement that
all discipline and martial ardour were lost, and they were
killed to a man. Pacheco was annoyed that the Raja could
not make Nairs out of these polers — he had not mastered
the mystery of the caste system; they had, however,
substantial rewards, including the right to meet a Nair on
the high road.
Pacheco, who was a born leader of men, received no
reward or advancement for his gallant defence ; ' he, however,
obtained a curious document from the Raja of Cochin — a
grant of the Portuguese title of Dom, and of certain arms,
set out with all the jargon of mediaeval heraldry " on a
scarlet field, to signify the amount of blood he had shed. ''
Lopo Soares commanded the fleet of the year, 3 which
consisted of 14 ships. His orders were to prevent any
ships leaving Cochin except those of the Portuguese, and
if the Raja objected he was to be told that this was for
his benefit. Lopo Soares visited Calicut at the request of
the Samuri to arrange a peace, but the Italians were an
insurmountable obstacle ; the Samuri would not deliver up
men whom he considered his guests, and his unlucky capital
1 See Camoens, "Os Lusiadas", canto X. 15 to 25.
2 For this extraordinary document see Castanheda, 1. 88.
3 See An. Mar e Col., series 3, p. 355, for his sailing orders.
io2 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
had to stand another two days' bombardment. The King
of Portugal had, in consequence of the steadfastness of the
Raja of Cochin to his allies during the early part of 1503,
— of which alone he had heard at the departure of Lopo
Soares — sent him valuable presents, and, in spite of the
disturbance caused by the war, the ships were not long in
finding a cargo.
Cranganor lies 15 miles north of Cochin, and commands
several ramifications of the inland navigation ; and as the
passage thence to Cochin was easy and safe at all times
of the year, the Samuri was collecting there the material
for an extensive campaign against Cochin directly the
Portuguese left the coast, but his action was anticipated,
and the destruction of the town by a force under Lopo
Soares was a severe blow. A worse one was to follow.
At Pandarani Kullam ' were collected 17 vessels of large
size, with their bows on shore, fastened together with chains.
At the entrance there was an earthwork mounting guns,
and the defending force was 4,000 strong, all fighting men
from the north, who, driven from Malabar by the prolonged
war, were returning to their homes. It was a bold enterprise
for 360 Portuguese in 15 boats and two caravels to attack
vessels so defended. The two caravels were no help, but
the boats, led by Lopo Soares in person, pushed home
gallantly, and after a fight that lasted from morning to
mid-day of December 31st, the ships and all their cargo
were burned. In this dashing exploit the Portuguese had
23 killed and 170 wounded — or more than half their force.
The parting between the Raja of Cochin and Pacheco
was a sorrowful one, especially to the former, for the surly
1 Correa puts this fight at "Trampatao, a port of Cananor." This is per-
haps Vallarpattanam — Dharmapattanam is nearer his name, but far too small
a place. The other authorities place the fight at Pandarani Kullam - a more
likely site.
1502 — 1504 l0 3
demeanour of Lopo Soares repelled any request that Pacheco
might remain. The Raja, impoverished by his long continued
struggle with enemies his alliance with the Portuguese had
brought against him, had nothing to offer Pacheco save a
little pepper for a private cargo, which the latter could not
take. Manuel Telles, his successor, did everything to make
his gallant predecessor regretted.
CHAPTER VII
Almeida, Viceroy, 1505 — 1509
The Portuguese interests in the East had already passed
beyond the stage in which they could be managed by an
annual fleet ; while the experiment of leaving a subordinate
in charge in the interval between the departure of one fleet
and the arrival of another had not proved satisfactory. It
was therefore decided to appoint a Viceroy for three years,
and the choice fell on that uncouth seaman — rough even
in a rough age — Tristao da Cunha, whose name has survived
in the islands he discovered. Before he could sail, however,
he was struck with temporary blindness, and D. Francisco
d'Almeida was selected in his stead. Almeida was a man
45 years of age, of noble birth, the seventh son of D.
Lopo d'Almeida, first count of Abrantes. He took with
him a large fleet and 1,500 men at arms, and he was
accompanied by his only son, D. Lourenco, a youth of
great bodily strength and great proficiency in the use of
all arms. ' Almeida's orders were to build fortresses in
Kilwa, Anjadiva, Cananor and Cochin. - He was to take
with him the Captains and the staff for the fortresses,
and should any of the rulers object to a foreign power
putting up fortifications within their limits, a suitable
1 For the story of his death see Camoens Os Lusiadas, X. 29 — 32.
- Similar orders were issued to him in 1506 as regards Malacca. If the
ruler objected — well, he was still to build it. See these order-, in An. Mar
e Col., series 4, p. 112, dated April 6th, 1506.
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1505— 1509 105
base was to be selected and war made until they sub-
mitted. '
After building a fort at Kilvva and sacking several towns
on the African coast, Anjadiva was reached in time to
commence a fort there on September 14th, 1505 ; experience
showed this fort to be useless and it was dismantled in 1 507.
Negotiations were also begun with the authorities on the
mainland, but before any definite conclusion had been
arrived at, a vessel coming from the north found herself,
when she opened the south of Anjadiva, in the centre of the
Portuguese fleet. She turned towards the mainland, but her
pursuers followed so closely on her heels that the crew
had barely time to run her ashore and escape up country,
leaving in her 19 horses. Before the Portuguese, however,
could remove these horses, a sudden storm arose which
drove them to the shelter of Anjadiva, and in the morning
the horses were gone. The governor of Honawar, under
Raja Nara Sinha Rao of Vijayanagara, in whose territory
this happened, denied all knowledge of the animals, but
offered to pay their value. This offer was refused; but in
the Honawar River lay some trading vessels, and when,
after some fighting, they were burned on October 16th,
the Portuguese accepted the proffered price.
After the peace had been concluded, one Timoja had no
difficulty in proving to Almeida the mistake he had made
in attacking his natural ally, the Hindu power. The Raja
of Vijayanagara was at perpetual war with his Muham-
edan neighbours, and, as no horses fitted for military pur-
poses were bred locally, it was of great importance to either
side to command the import trade from Ormuz of the
horses now known as Gulf Arabs. The Raja had obtained
1 A journal of this voyage was translated into English from the Flemish,
anrl published in 1894 as the work of Albericus Vespuccius. It seems more
than doubtful if it is by him. It adds nothing to our knowledge of the events. :
io6 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
at one time a considerable supply of these through his
ports, but owing to the spread of Muhamedanism among
the Hindus there had grown up a body of so-called
Naiteas or converts who favoured their coreligionists at the
expense of the Hindus. In 1479, acting on recognized
lines of policy, the Raja of Vijayanagara arranged, without
warning, a simultaneous attack on the Naiteas. Many were
killed and the balance were driven to Goa, which from that
day grew at the expense of the Raja's ports. To secure
any trade at all, Vijayanagara was compelled to keep
the fleet of which this Timoja was commandant, to make
perpetual war on Goa. From the date of his interview
with Almeida, Timoja was closely allied with the Portuguese,
and in the time of Albuquerque attained some prominence.
Joao Homem was a captain of one of the caravels in
Almeida's fleet, he was a scatterbrained man of whom many
stories were told. While dropping down the Tagus when
the fleet was starting, his crew, fresh from the ploughtail, did
not understand the pilot's orders to larboard and starboard '
the helm. Homem was equal to the occasion: he hung a
bundle of onions on one side of the ship and a bundle of garlic
on the other — " Now," he said to the pilot, " tell them to onion
their helm, or garlic their helm, they will understand that
quick enough." No sooner were they over the bar than
he divided up all the food among the crew, to each man
his share, — for he was no purser, he said, — and told them
to help themselves to the water and the wine. Naturally
they were still far from India when the crew came to him,
weeping, to say they had no food and only water for a day.
"Oh! men of little faith," said Homem, "God will provide." The
very next day they reached an island with a store of good
water, and wild fowls that they split and dried in the sun.
1 These words are of northern derivation.
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1505 — I 509 107
When the fleet reached Anjadiva, Homem was sent down
the coast with orders to the different factories. At Quilon
he found some Muhamedan ships loading pepper. "What
" is the good," he said, " of complaining to the chief? He and
" they are black together, and to take their rudders and sails
"is better than all the King's orders." He stored the rudders
and sails in the factory and sailed away, leaving his country-
men defenceless. Homem, on his return voyage, captured
two vessels loaded with rice. He left in them the original
crews of 16 men, and put in each a prize crew of three
Portuguese. The prize crews went to sleep and were over-
powered and killed by the original crews, who took the
vessels into Calicut. When the Viceroy reached Cochin he
heard that, owing to Homem's acts at Quilon, the populace
had, on his departure, risen suddenly on the factory and
burned alive in it all the Portuguese. Homem, who had
nearly lost his caravel for his carelessness in the matter of
the rice boats, was now deprived of his command.
The Viceroy started down the coast on October 1 8th,
1505, and at Cananor laid the foundations of a fort of stone
and lime on the end of the promontory. ' The Muhamedan
party in Cananor was both powerful and wealthy, and to
retain their hold on the place a fort was necessary, but
Cananor rapidly sank into a place of second-rate importance.
The chieftainship of Cochin had, at the time of Almeida's
arrival there, become vacant through the operation of an
old custom. The head of the Cochin line was always a
priest in charge of the worship of a temple — the next in suc-
cession was the ruling chief. On the death of the head, there-
fore, the ruling chief — who, in this case, was Trimumpara, the
early friend of the Portuguese — was promoted to the temple.
The question was — who was to succeed him ? The senior of the
1 The present fort stands on the site of this old one.
io8 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
sister's sons in the direct line was closely allied with the
enemies of the Portuguese, and the latter arranged, though
not without difficulty, to set him aside for another nephew
more favourable to themselves. Trimumpara died in 1510?
when the Portuguese found it convenient to abolish this custom.
Owing to the presence of the Portuguese fleets on the
Malabar coasts, the Muhamedan ships, trading between the
extreme East and the Red Sea, had taken a new route
through the Maldives, that kept them clear of their enemies.
The Viceroy despatched D. Lourengo, his son, to close this
route and to explore Ceylon, but, owing to the ignorance
of the pilots, he missed the Maldives, though he reached
Ceylon. He did little, however, there but put up a pillar
at Point de Galle, and no definite occupation of the island
was made for many years. ' On his return D. Lourengo
was sent northwards to Cananor on convoy duty. One day
in February 1506, as he was sitting in a room in the
Cananor fort, a man, who turned out to be Varthema the
Italian, came in dressed as a Muhamedan, and begged for
a private audience. a At this audience he told D. Lourengo of
the extensive preparations the Samuri was making in secret.
The Samuri had been, in fact, thoroughly alarmed at the attack
on the towns of the African coast, at the new fortresses, and
at the news that year in year out a powerful fleet and a
Viceroy would stay in India. His preparations were defensive
1 Correa, to magnify his hero D. Lourengo, describes a monster he slew
in Ceylon. Apparently it is a distorted description of a crocodile. Correa
was shown the bones in Ceylon in 1538.
- This was the Varthema whose travels were published by the Hakluyl
Society in 1863. It shows the discredit into which Portuguese writers have
fallen, that the editors of this work, who have ransacked the libraries of
Europe (except the Portuguese) to elucidate the history of Varthema, have
missed the passages which explain the dark places of his history. He returned
to Europe in the fleet of Tristao da Cunha, and it is practically certain, OS
Yule suggested in the bibliography to his Glossary, that he never visited the
further East. For Varthema'-; account of his escape from '"nlicut -er page 270
of the translation.
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1 505— I 509 IO q
rather than offensive. Assisted by the Arabs and other
Muhamedan traders he had armed and loaded a large
convoy, and the two Italian deserters, Joao Maria and
Piero Antonio, had cast for him about 500 cannon, chiefly
small pieces. Varthema, as their countryman, had been
much with the Italians in Calicut, where they were virtual
prisoners with no hope of ever returning to their homes ;
they dared not trust themselves to the Portuguese, and
they were far too valuable from their special knowledge
to have been allowed to pass through any other part of
India, — indeed, soon after Varthema left Calicut they were
killed on the suspicion that they intended to abscond.
In March 1506 this armed convoy, consisting of between
200 and 300 vessels, the greater number being merely
row-boats, started from the Malabar Coast ; Abdu-r- Rahman,
a relative of the Captain of the Red Sea ship burned by
Vasco da Gama, was in command. ' The Portuguese fleet
of 3 large vessels and a brigantine brought this force to
action on March 16th. There was but little fighting properly
so called, but the massacre lasted two days, no Portuguese
was killed, and the number of the enemy slaughtered was
from 3,500 to 4,000, the largest vessels were captured and
many of the smaller ones sunk. -
The Portuguese were by this time beginning to settle
down in Cochin, but they found, as all emigrants must
find, that although in the new country some articles of
food were cheap, others which were almost necessaries of
life could not be obtained at all. All the wheat, for instance,
that came to Cochin was grown beyond the tropics to the
north, in the country of their enemies, the Muhamedans,
and was seldom tasted save by those of rank sufficient to
dine at the Viceroy's table — its importation at all was a
1 Varthema, p. 274. .
2 Varthema was in this fight, p. 274.
no THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
novelty. There were some fowls and a little fish in the
market, but the great majority of the Europeans only had
rice from captured prizes ; naturally they sickened on a diet
of rice and bananas varied very occasionally by meat, and
to men so weakened in health the labour of building the
Cochin fort was heavy. The factor had taken advantage
of the interregnum between the promotion of the old Raja
and the selection of the new one, to dig the foundations
of the new fortress, and Almeida, directly the cargo ships
were despatched, put his whole energy into finishing it; but
the work was delayed as he could not find the necessary
craftsmen in Cochin.
Towards the end of the year D. Lourenco d'Almeida
was in command of a strong fleet that was sent northwards
to convoy the trading vessels from the ports friendly to
the Portuguese past the hostile harbours. He was appealed
to by the crews of some Cananor and Cochin ships in one
of these, for help against a superior force of blockading
Calicut vessels, but the council which D. Lourenco held
decided not to fight, and the Portuguese left their allies to
their fate. T The Captains who had signed the decision of
the council were deprived of their commands by the Viceroy
and sent prisoners to Portugal.
Trouble had meanwhile been rapidly brewing in another
quarter. While D. Lourengo's fleet was sailing north one
of his ships had lagged behind to water, and hurrying after
her consorts, had sighted and brought to a vessel manned
by Muhamedans, who showed a pass in the usual form,
signed by Lourengo de Brito, Captain of Cananor. As the
captain, Goncalo Vaz, affected to believe that the pass was
1 Castanheda hints that D. Lourenco was afraid. He says that at the
supper the evening before the Council he was pensive and expressed his
wonder whether they should all meet again. The Council would hardly
have gone against the strongly expressed wish of D. Lourengo.
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1505— 1509 «i
a forgery and the ship from Calicut, he killed the crew,
sewed them up in a sail, and sent the ship and the crew
to the bottom. The vessel was from Cananor, owned by
"Mamale Marakkar," a well-known Cananor merchant; its
cargo was valuable, and his nephew was on board. The sail
split, and the bodies were washed on shore and recognized.
Gongalo Vaz was deprived of his command, but no further
punishment was awarded him. The Cananor Raja with
whom the Portuguese had had at first to deal was dead,
and as in a disputed succession the arbitrator was a Brahmin
selected by the Samuri and favourable to his interests, the
new Raja's views were coloured by those of the supporters
of his appointment, he was therefore ready to listen to
the Muhamedans that he should league himself with the
Samuri against the Portuguese. Lourengo de Brito, the
Captain of Cananor, only heard of this alliance late in
March, and his message reached the Viceroy on Maundy
Thursday, April 1st, 1507, while amiracle play was being acted
in the Cochin church. No time was lost : the Viceroy went
in person from house to house to collect arms, and, to
show the press, it is said that the very centurions in the
miracle play had to restore their borrowed doublets and
greaves. In the heavy weather of the opening monsoon
D. Lourengo took the reinforcements and returned in safety.
The so-called fort of Cananor consisted of a wall,
cutting across the neck of the promontory from sea to
sea. The two sea faces were undefended save by the
stormy ocean in the monsoon months, and by the Por-
tuguese fleet at other times. The weakness of the position
lay in its water supply; the one sweet water well was
outside the wall, towards the land. ] For the first month of
the siege the Portuguese, when they wanted water, had to
1 Logan says the Cananor fort is to this day dependent on this very well
for water, p. 315.
ii2 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
fight their way to the well and back, and lost heavily in
consequence, until one Thomas Fernandez, who, from
the frequency with which his name recurs, was a skilful
engineer and architect, made an underground tunnel
to it and covered in the top to prevent the water being
poisoned. The garrison was only about 300 strong ; there
was certainly a large contingent of slaves which brought the
total number in the fort almost to 1,000, but the}' were a
source of danger to the garrison ; for when hard times came
they deserted in numbers and carried to the besiegers the
news of the fortress. Whether by the design of a slave or
whether by accident, one night the inflammable materials
of the huts were fired, and all the food stores of the garrison,
public and private, were destroyed. When all the cats and
dogs and rats in the fortress had been eaten and famine
stared the Portuguese in the face, and when the moderat-
ing seas of the monsoon left two sides of the settlement
defenceless, the arrival of Tristao da Cunha with the ships
of 1506 raised the siege. ' Peace was easily concluded with
Cananor, for the Viceroy felt that the war had been
provoked by an outrage of the Portuguese.
It is necessary to bring forward the history of this fleet
of Tristao da Cunha that arrived so opportunely. Tristao
da Cunha, who left Portugal in April 1506, commanded
ten cargo vessels, and a squadron of four vessels accom-
panied him, under Afonso d'Albuquerque, afterwards
surnamed the Great, - who was to build a fortress in
Socotra and then go on to Ormuz and render it tributary
to Portugal, thus closing, it was hoped, the mouths both of
the Red Sea and of the Persian Gulf. After the expiry of
Almeida's three years as Viceroy, Albuquerque was to
1 Varthema, p. 281, says he was in this siege which, he says, lasted from
April 27th to Aug. 27th. His account is rather vague and general.
2 Albuquerque was part owner of his ship the Cirne.
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1505— 1509 113
succeed him as Governor of India. As the flagship was
but a poor sailer, the fleet went so far south that it discov-
ered the Tristao da Cunha islands, and did not reach
Mozambique until December, too late to save the Indian
voyage that year. Of the ships which came straggling in,
there was one that had coasted the east side of Madagas-
car; it brought ginger, cloves and silver ' enough to fire
the imagination of Tristao da Cunha, who was at heart an
explorer and adventurer, and too glad at the chance of seeing
a new country to remember Socotra, Ormuz or the Red Sea.
Brave deeds were done in Madagascar among savages
armed with bones tied to sticks — negroes in appearance and
Muhamedans in religion, but nothing save provisions was
got. Albuquerque seeing the inutility of this excursion,
got leave to return with his ships to Mozambique. ' Tristao
da Cunha continued south, towards the Matatana river, where
rumour promised him an Eldorado. One night they ran
before a smart breeze along an unknown coast, and in the
morning one of his ships was gone; she had torn her
bottom out on a reef, and only the master, pilot, and 13
men escaped. After this Da Cunha returned to Mozambique.
Malindi was the next halt. The chieftain there had two
enemies, Ozi and Barava, and when Da Cunha learnt that
these places were malignant because of Malindi's friendship
with Portugal, and also that they were wealthy, no rigorous
proof of the origin of the quarrel was asked, but the two
places were sacked. Bringing off" the Barava plunder, an
overladen boat with the chaplain of the flag-ship on board
was overset, and the priest and most of the crew drowned.
Barros piously suggests that Providence was angry with
1 The ginger turned out to be of no commercial value, the cloves from
the wreck of a ship, and the silver from bracelets come from no one knew
where.
- Cartas, page 30.
8
H4 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
some sailors who, to get at their bracelets more quickly,
had hacked off the arms of living women ; it was but a
blind justice, after all, for the commander who hounded
them on escaped, and it is to be hoped the chaplain was
innocent. None of the Portuguese were killed by the Barava
men, who fought with javelins, bows and arrows and hives
of bees, but so honourable was the feat of arms that, at
his special request, Albuquerque knighted his commanding
officer, Tristao da Cunha.
The next halt was at Socotra, which was reached in April
1507. Among the natives of that island there still lingered
some memory of Jacobite Christianity, ' but the memory
was little more than the reverence for a symbol in the
shape of a cross, and the names by which their children
were distinguished. They were low in the scale of civili-
sation; they had no arms, offensive or defensive, except
slings and some small iron swords. Their habits were
pastoral and not agricultural, and they had not even the
skill to catch the fish that swarmed on their shores. a They
had, at the time of which we are writing, been for about
50 years subject to the Arabs of the opposite coast, who
had a small garrison under a captain, Khwaja Ibrahim. The
only attraction to the Portuguese was that it lay in the
fair way of ships from the Red Sea to Southern India, and
its possession would, they hoped, close the mouth of that
sea to the Muhamedans. The Arab fort was captured after
a sharp skirmish in which Albuquerque was severely wounded
by a stone. In connection with this assault, there is a
characteristic story of Tristao da Cunha; he saw his son,
1 So named from Jacob Baradceus, Bishop of Edessa in the 6th century, who
taught that Jesus Christ had but one nature and that the Divine.
2 For an interesting account of Socotra by an eye-witness see De Castro's
Roteiro of the voyage of 1541, page 16. The men, he says, are tawny and
well shaped — the women "honestly pretty. "'
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1505 — 1 509 115
Nuno da Cunha, afterwards (1529 — 1538) Governor of India,
racing with Albuquerque's nephew, Afonso de Noronha, for
the fort ; his blood was warmed with the fight, and the old
buccaneer lost enough of his Portuguese stateliness to shout
to Albuquerque — "Let us blood these puppies — Hie on!
Nuno, hie on! " When the fortress was built Afonso de
Noronha was made Captain. Tristao da Cunha started for
India on August 10th, 1507, and Albuquerque left for Ormuz
ten days later.
After Cananor had been relieved and the cargo loaded
at Cochin, the Viceroy and Tristao da Cunha started with
their fleets to destroy the Samuri's ships defended by a
large body of men who had thrown up stockades and
batteries. The attack on November 25th ended in the
complete triumph of the Portuguese, ' and, as usual, Tristao
da Cunha gloried in the fight. There was a mosque in front,
thick with Moors : " D. Lourengo," he shouted, " christen
" me that youngster of mine with your sword in yonder
" mosque ; with you for a godfather he will gain honour." 2
All the booty was burned, and on December 10th Tristao
da Cunha sailed for Europe. On his return voyage he
discovered Ascension Island.
Trouble was meanwhile brewing in the north. Kansuh el
Ghori, the last independent Mameluke Sultan, was at this
time reigning in Egypt. The effects of the Portuguese
policy in Indian waters were quickly apparent in the
1 This fight is interesting as an example of the difficulty of arriving at
any exact idea of the semi-mythical D. Lourengo d' Almeida. In Barros he
disposes of one Nair champion, whom he cleaves to the breast. In Castanheda
the Nair wounds D. Lourengo, who turns sick, and his friends kill the Nair. In
Correa he begins by eating marmalade and drinking water, and then starts
to meet 14 Nair champions, who challenge him and who all attack at once:
he disposes of them in a series of most tremendous thwacks. All agree in
the story of Tristao da Cunha.
2 Varthema (p. 286) was in this fight and was knighted by the Viceroy,
with Tristao da Cunha, he says, for sponsor.
n6 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Egyptian custom-houses, and the deficient revenue gave a
point to the complaints of the Muhamedan traders, and
especially of " Maimama Marakkar " who had been so grossly
outraged by Vincent Sodre. The Sultan breathed fire and
fury; he would destroy the Jerusalem Temples, the relics
in the Holy Land, and the Monastery of St. Catherine at
Mount Sinai, and would order all Christians to leave his
territory or else become Muhamedans. The head of the
Monastery of St. Catherine, terrified at these menaces,
undertook a mission to the Pope of Rome. He visited both
Rome and Portugal, but failed to get much comfort from
the interviews he had, beyond sympathetic donations for
his monastery. It was clear to the Sultan that his only
chance lay in an armed force, and as there was no timber
fit for ship-building to be got in the Red Sea, he obtained
a supply in Scanderoon, which was sent in 25 boats to
Alexandria. This flotilla, however, encountered the Rhodes
fleet, five were sunk and six captured; of the remainder
four foundered in a storm, and only ten reached Alexandria.
The wood was taken up the Nile in boats, worked up
in Cairo, and sent across to Suez to be built into twelve
vessels there. Mir Hashim, a native of Asia Minor, com-
manded. There were 1,500 men at arms, and the crews
were Levantines of all nations. Suez was left on February
15th, 1507. Diu was reached on September 20th, where some
time was spent in refitting. The Governor of Diu was then
Malik Aiyaz, a Russian who had been enslaved in his
youth by the Turks. He was a man of very considerable
ability, who held his own through many years till his death,
and who foiled all the efforts of the Portuguese to establish
themselves within the limits of his governorship, without
ever losing any of their respect. '
1 For an interesting and full account of this man from the Minit-i-Sikaiulari
see Bailey's "Guzerat," pp. 233 — 235,
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, I 505 — I 509 117
In January 1508 D. Lourengo d'Almeida started up the
coast on the usual convoy duty; no reports of the arrival
of the Egyptians had reached him, and he took only 8
vessels ; the usual burning of ships and slaying of crews on
the way did not give him much chance of gaining any
information. At Chaul he heard some confused rumours,
but disregarded them, thinking they were set on foot to
frighten him ; and when his father sent him more definite
information, though with hardly credible supineness, he sent
him no help, he hardly believed it. Even when the enemy's
fleet was off Chaul bar they were taken for the ships of
Albuquerque coming from Ormuz. "I see no crosses on
" their sails," said a cautious old warrior to a group of
youngsters laughing at him for buckling on his armour,
and this was the first intimation they believed. It was then
March 1508.
A cannonade, as the Egyptian ships sailed through the
Portuguese lines, was the inconclusive result of the first
day's encounter. A council that night determined to board
the enemy, but the attempt in the morning failed as the
Egyptian ships, though bulkier, drew less water than the
deep-keeled Portuguese, and the fight became an artillery
duel. Towards evening there was a shout from the enemy
to welcome the arrival of Malik Aiyaz with 60 foists, and
this reinforcement decided the battle. That night the
Portuguese agreed to fly : all was got ready, and with the
morning light and the ebbing tide they started ; all escaped
safely save D. Lourengo's ship, which took a wide sweep
to avoid the enemy's shot. A cannon-ball entered her rice
store-room at the stern, between wind and water, and it
was afloat before the damage was discovered ; the rice then
prevented all efforts to stop the leak. The bow was in
the air, when the ship running foul of some fishing stakes,
was so jammed there in the race of the tide that no cutting
n8 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
away of stakes was of any avail, and there was no breeze
to help. The enemy gathered round the doomed vessel,
but four attempts to board were beaten off. D. Lourengo
himself with half his leg carried away by a cannon-shot,
sat on a chair by the mainmast and encouraged his men
to fight on, until another shot in the chest flung him lifeless
on the deck; he was carried below, and his body sank
through the shattered planks and was never recovered.
Another attempt to board was successful; 19 men, mostly
wounded, were made prisoners, and the ship itself sank,
carrying some of the Egyptians with her. The loss of the
Portuguese in the fight was 140 killed and 124 wounded. 1
It is to the credit of Malik Aiyaz that the wounded prisoners
were treated with very great humanity. The whole bent
of the Viceroy's mind was now turned on taking vengeance
for the death of his son. " He who has eaten the cockerel
"must eat the cock," he said. This, his attitude, must be
understood in order to get an explanation of his later
actions, which are otherwise unintelligible.
Albuquerque left Socotra on August 20th, 1507, with
7 ships and 450 fighting men to attack Ormuz. Of this
small force 120 men were sick, and he had no provisions
on board his ships. The King of Ormuz at this time was
a boy — Saifu-d-din— 12 years of age, but the entire power
lay in the hands of his ministers, Khwaja Atar and Rais
Nuru-d-din, not merely because the King was a minor, but
because these puppets only retained the title of king as
long as they did not interfere with their powerful ministers ;
an inquisitive or obstructive monarch was at once made
away with. As Albuquerque's instructions were explicit he
did not consider that any pretext was required for making
1 For the Indian accounts of this battle see Bailey's "Guzerat," p. 222. They
put their own loss at 400 men and claim to have killed many ''disorderly
Europeans."
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1505—1509 119
war on a Prince with whom neither he nor his master had
had any previous communication. Each town of the Ormuz
state was attacked as it was reached : Kariat, Muscat and
Khurfakam were sacked and burned. The carnage was
great, and the unfortunate prisoners were only released when
the women had had their noses and ears cut off, and the
men their noses and right hands. These actions were not
committed in hot blood, for very few Portuguese were
killed; they were committed in cold blood to produce an
impression of fear.
In Ormuz Albuquerque had to hide the smallness of his
force from the city by countermarching and manoeuvring as
if on the stage, for his demand was no less than that the
King should become tributary to Portugal and pay for the
peace which the fleet of that country imposed on those
who followed the seas. The subsequent history of Ormuz
is a bitter satire on the pretensions involved in this barefaced
aggression : even his own captains professed to be shocked
at the naked robbery, but at this distance of time it is
difficult to say how far they were biassed by their previous
disputes with their commander, because he never took them
into his counsels. There were some 400 vessels in Ormuz
harbour when the Portuguese reached it, of which 60 were
ships of some size — one from Guzerat was of 800 tons
with 1,000 fighting men. There were also some 30,000 men
with arms of sorts in the city, of whom 4,000 were Persian
archers. As the negotiations hung fire the ships were
attacked and quickly destroyed by artillery ; when troops
landed, the King of Ormuz at once surrendered and agreed
to the terms imposed — namely, -£ 1 ,600 down for the expenses
of the expedition, a tribute of ,£5,000 a year, and a site
whereon a fort could be built. Over the proposal to build
a fort the captains raised difficulties : their ships were not
fit to remain at sea, nor had they men enough to leave
i2o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
a garrison of 200 in the fort, and with neither sea power
nor a garrison, the fort was but a pledge in the hands of
the Muhamedans. The division of the £1,600, too, raised
other debates. Albuquerque considered that half should
go to pay for the fortress and half be sent to India to buy
pepper for the King; the captains claimed the whole for
the men. In this miserable quarrel, that grew apparently
out of the discontent of the captains that they could not
go prize-seeking at the mouth of the Red Sea, everything
was done to thwart Albuquerque.
The quarrel culminated at a council where Albuquerque,
stung by some words of Joao da Nova, drew his sword
and seized him by the shoulder. Da Nova, weeping, picked
up some hairs from the deck, — hairs he declared plucked
from his beard, — wrapped them in his handkerchief, and
swore he would have justice from the King. ' Da Nova
was for a time deprived of his ship and under arrest. Albu-
querque's great qualities never shone so brightly as when
at bay before an enemy who outnumbered him by ioo to
i ; with his captains and crews mutinous, his ships hardly
seaworthy, and any reinforcement months distant, he held
his own through many weeks. - The foundations of the new
fort were laid on October 6th, but as information of the
dissensions in Albuquerque's ships had filtered through to
the city, the King's ministers were waiting for some op-
portunity to prevent the work continuing.
The King of Ormuz employed in his negotiations an
Armenian, one Khwaja Bairam, who knew Portuguese, and
1 For Joao da Nova's protest of September 12th, 1507, and Albuquerque's
reply of October 27th — both very interesting documents -see An. Mar. e Col.,
series 3, page 443.
- In his letter of February 2nd, 1508, to the Viceroy, Albuquerque says
that when news was brought to Ormuz that the Egyptian fleet was coming
to attack him, he ordered another anchor down to show he had no intention
of moving.
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1505— 1509 121
Albuquerque learned from him the news of the city. ' He
was able therefore to gauge the effect that the desertion
of two Greeks, a Biscayan and a Portuguese that happened
at this time, would have on his enemies. The deserters,
in fact, told enough of the weakness and dissensions of the
Portuguese fleet to make Khwaja Atar refuse to give up
the masts and yards of the fleet Albuquerque had defeated
in the harbour. ■ " If you interfere with me in any way,"
said Albuquerque, " I will build the walls of Muhamedans'
" bones. I will nail your ears to the door and erect the
" flagstaff on your skull." This menace kept Khwaja Atar
quiet for a time, but the four deserters, in spite of reiterated
demands, were not given up.
At length work was stopped on the fortress, the factor
was recalled from the town, and, after the usual protests
from the captains in a signed letter dated January 5th, 1 508,
Albuquerque bombarded the city till his powder ran short
and the touch-holes blew out of his guns. ' The bombard-
ment was then turned into a blockade, and the supply of
sweet water from the mainland cut off, and when the city
cleared out the brackish wells of Toranbagh they were
destroyed. * For greater security Albuquerque, besides his
orders to the captains, had taken written agreements from
the masters and pilots, but all was in vain ; the captains
traitorously opened communications with the enemy against
whom their commander was acting, and three ships stole
away secretly to India. Thus weakened, there was nothing
for Albuquerque but to break the blockade and go to
1 Khwaja Bairam left Ormuz with the Portuguese, and was rewarded in
Portugal for his services.
2 Cartas, page 12.
3 Cartas, page 14.
1 .See Cartas, pages. 6 to 19, where Albuquerque's case is fully stated, He
hanged some of the pilots afterwards in Goa,
i22 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Socotra. On the way there Joao de Nova, who had been
restored to his ship, took a chance that offered, and bore
up for India.
The Socotra fortress was suffering from famine, and the
island in insurrection : a few prizes and the arrival of two
new ships from Portugal gave the needed relief. In the
rains the crazy ships were patched up, and on September
13th Albuquerque was again before Ormuz, but matters
had changed very considerably. Arrived on the Indian
coast, the rebel captains had met the defeated fleet returning
from Chaul to Cochin with the news of D. Lourengo's
death. They were received by the Viceroy with no marks
of displeasure, and the right of their conduct in leaving
their commander in the face of the enemy did not trouble
his mind, filled with only one idea ; on the whole, perhaps,
he inclined to think they had acted correctly, chiefly
because their ships were a reinforcement to his avenging
fleet, but to some extent, perhaps, because he disliked
Albuquerque and his methods. Some reason of the nature
of this last one is necessary to explain his conduct in
writing to Ormuz to say that he was satisfied with the
tribute agreed to by the King, but that Albuquerque had
done many things at Ormuz for which he should chastise
him when the time came. This letter certainly justified
Albuquerque, after the event, in not following his captains
hot foot to India, where he would have involved himself in
a wrangle with the mutineers, that would have given Almeida
a pretext for sending home his successor designate with
heavy and aggravated charges against him.
The effect of this letter was evident enough in the
conduct of the Ormuz ministers to Albuquerque on his
return ; still, although they refused any concession to him, he
remained there six weeks in the hope of some reinforcement
from Portugal; when it did not arrive he, on November
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1505— 1509 123
4th, perforce sailed to India. ' Albuquerque reached Cananor
on December 5th, where he found the Viceroy pushing on
the loading of the home-going ships. In the fleet of 1508
the King of Portugal introduced some changes : the Viceroy
was ordered — it is true — to make over charge of India to
Albuquerque, but the latter was only to hold command
from Guzerat to Cape Comorin. Two independent govern-
ors were appointed, Jorge d'Aguiar from the Cape of
Good Hope to Guzerat, and Diogo Lopes de Sequiera from
Cape Comorin eastwards. - The idea of this arrangement,
if indeed it had any underlying idea, appears to have
been that, if the mouth of the Red Sea were closed, the
trade of India would of itself fall into Portuguese hands.
Fortunately for the Portuguese, d'Aguiar was lost on the
Tristao da Cunha islands, ( and his successor, Duarte de
Lemos, had little authority; Sequiera failed at Malacca;
and Albuquerque was on the spot to remedy the mistake
of his master.
In India Albuquerque found himself in a sea of intrigue
with no pilot ; he evidently trusted rather to the advice and
judgment of Gaspar Pereira, the Viceroy's secretary, who
was out of favour with his master. There is a good deal
about the man in Albuquerque's letters, written after the
King of Portugal had sent him out for a second term of
office under Albuquerque. Albuquerque had by then dis-
covered his true character; but there was some reason for
his at first trusting Pereira and his protestations, for the
1 Albuquerque's ship, the Cirne, was so rotten that fish came in with the
bilge water, and So slaves at the pumps could hardly keep her afloat.
2 For Sequiera's sailing orders in which he is particularly told to enquire
everywhere for the ' ; Rio Gramjes", and where it falls into the sea, see. An.
Mar. e Col., 3rd series, p. 379.
s For an account of his voyage out and all that was known of the loss
of d'Aguiar see |the letter of Duarte de Lemos to the King of Portugal, of
Sept. 30th, 1508. — An. Mar. e Col., series 3, page 525.
124 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
man had been a chamber-lad of his uncle's, and had been
taken into the royal service only after his pertinacity in
soliciting for him. "He could stir up a whole army to strife
"and escape himself" is Albuquerque's comment on him when
he knew him better. ' Albuquerque at once demanded some
explanation of the Viceroy's conduct in receiving the
mutinous captains, and the immediate relinquishment to him
of the Government of India. The Viceroy promised to give
him every satisfaction on his own return from Diu, and Albu-
querque, recognizing that further protest was unavailing,
went to Cochin.
Almeida sailed for Diu on Dec. 12th, 1508, with 18 ships
and 1,200 men. Diu, which has now been a Portuguese
possession for more than 3 l /g centuries, and which plays
a large part in Indo-Portuguese history, is an island seven
miles long by two miles broad, south of Guzerat, separated
from the mainland by a narrow channel that passes through
a considerable swamp. To the north the channel is only
navigable by small boats; but to the south, under a sand-
stone cliff, there is a small harbour where craft not drawing
over 12 feet of water can anchor. Gogala on the main,
called by the Portuguese after the events of Almeida's
time, Villa dos Rumes, belongs also to that nation. To
collect his force Almeida had depleted both Cochin and
Cananor; all else must be sacrificed to regain the command
of the sea. Coast towns were sacked, but nowhere could
any refreshments be obtained ; for, alarmed at the news of
the Portuguese armada, the people had hastened to hide
the scanty store they had saved from the locusts which
had swarmed that year. Diu was reached on February 2nd,
1509. There can be no doubt but that there had been
1 Cartas, pp. 275 and 284 — 291, are especially valuable, for they give
Albuquerque's business habits — habits that are now, as they were then, the
right ones for an administrator.
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, 1505 — 1509 125
negotiations between the Viceroy and Malik Aiyaz, the
Captain of Diu, and that the latter had been won over, if not
to espouse the Portuguese interests, at least to agree to
assist them secretly as far as he . was able.
Besides the 12 Egyptian ships there were about 100
sail of other vessels, including some from Calicut, but none
of much value as fighting machines except four large ones
of Guzerat. Contrary to the judgment of Mir Hashim, the
Muhamedan vessels awaited the expected attack at anchor.
The Portuguese advanced on February 3rd, and from
midday to nightfall there was a confused melee, which
ended in the discomfiture of the Egyptians and their allies,
with comparatively little loss to the Portuguese. The 17 sur
viving Portuguese prisoners were released, and the Viceroy,
it is recorded, trimmed his beard for the first time since
his son's death. No damage was done to Diu or to any of
the Guzerat ports, but in a triumphal procession down the
coast the Viceroy celebrated his victory at every halting-
place where there was a Muhamedan town, by firing the
limbs of his captives, who were executed in batches for that
purpose, over the city. Cochin was reached on March 8th.
Returned to Cochin, the Viceroy still refused to give
over charge to Albuquerque, on the ground that he had
been ordered to return in a particular ship (that of d'Aguiar)
which had not yet arrived, ' and that, as the giving over
charge and leaving India were to be simultaneous, Albu-
querque must wait. Although, looking back some years
afterwards, Albuquerque thought that he had paid too much
attention to Gaspar Pereira, yet he must be pronounced to
have behaved himself irreproachably under great provocation.
His avowed enemies had the ear of the Viceroy, and for
some months he was subjected to every petty annoyance
1 It had been wrecked.
126 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
that malice could suggest. His private servants, even his
surgeon and his personal friends, were removed from him,
and he was not allowed to leave his house ; some of his
adherents were imprisoned and some degraded, others
banished to Malacca in the fleet of Diogo Lopes de Sequiera.
The Viceroy further demeaned himself by receiving a petition
got up by the faction opposed to Albuquerque, and which
Sequiera, who had reached Cochin on April 21st, even
signed, asking that Albuquerque should not receive charge
of the Government. Albuquerque haughtily refused to reply
to the allegations of this petition : the King alone could be
his judge, he said. Even deprived of his friends and a
prisoner in his own house Albuquerque was too formidable
to be left alone, and it must have been a relief to him
when, in the worst of the early monsoon, he was sent up
the coast in a crazy ship to Cananor. In Cananor fort he was
the prisoner of the Captain ; but Cananor was not Cochin,
for there was neither the Viceroy nor the opposing faction,
and with the sympathy of the residents he broke his arrest
and lived freely, if quietly, in the settlement. Early in
September a fleet of 14 ships under the Marshal of Por-
tugal, D. Ferdinando Coutinho, a friend and relative of Al-
buquerque, reached Cananor. Coutinho had powers superior
even to those of Almeida, which there was no resisting.
Almeida left Cochin on his homeward voyage on December
1st, 1509, after giving over charge to Albuquerque. Most
of the latter's enemies accompanied him, but Joao da Nova
was too ill and died soon after ; it adds to our estimate of
Albuquerque to learn that, forgetting his griefs against the
dead, he followed his old comrade to the grave. Almeida
rounded the Cape safely, but at a watering-place on the
west of the Cape there were quarrels with the natives, whose
conduct he thought he must chastise in person. After the
cattle were rounded up at a village where the disorder had
ALMEIDA, VICEROY, I 505 — I 509 127
happened, the Portuguese — 150 strong — (who, despising their
enemies, wore no body armour) started with the herd to
return; about an equal number of natives attacked them in
their retreat, cut off stragglers, and used the herd of cattle
accustomed to their voices as a moving fortification against
their enemies. The Portuguese, who had only lances and
swords, began to fall fast, and the late Viceroy, 12 leading
fidalgoes and 50 other Portuguese were killed. This rout
happened on March 1st, 15 10.
CHAPTER VIII
Albuquerque, Governor, 1509— 151 5
Afonso d' Albuquerque, who now became Governor of
India, was a man of fifty-six years of age; considering,
therefore, the period in which he lived, he was an old man.
He had accompanied two expeditions from Portugal against
the Muhamedans, in which, although he acquitted himself
manfully, he was in no way particularly distinguished ; in
1503 also, he had, as has been said, commanded a squadron
of ships from Portugal to India. He had on this occasion
done well in clearing the Cochin territory of the enemy,
and to him must be given the credit also of being one of
the selectors of Duarte Pacheco ; but putting all together
there was nothing that is known of his past career which
foreshadowed the lustre that surrounds his term as governor.
Directly Almeida left Cochin, at the end of 1 509, the
Marshal pressed Albuquerque to assist him in carrying out
the King's orders by destroying Calicut. The new Governor
as well as those who knew India were opposed to any
attack ; there would be some immediate plunder perhaps,
but the Portuguese had no intention of retaining the town,
and the destruction of the houses composing it, mostly
thatched huts, would not break the Samuri's power.
However, as the Marshal explained at the Council, the
King's orders were definite, and admitted of no discussion;
the Council had only to decide on the way the attack
was to be made. The Samuri happened at the moment to
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 1515 129
to be away from Calicut, but secret though the preparations
for the attack were, the townspeople had ample time after
the news reached them, to concert their measures of
defence. The Portuguese fleet of thirty sail with 1,800 men
on board arrived on January 2nd, 15 10, and under his
patent the Marshal at once took supreme command of the
forces. Save a sea beating heavily on the coast, a few
fishermen's huts on the point, and a dense forest of palms,
there was little to be seen but a " Cerame ", so called by
the Portuguese, a room raised on posts, occasionally occupied
by the Samuri. l According to the plan, the Marshal with
800 men was to land on the north of the Cerame, and
Albuquerque with 700 on the south. Both forces were to
meet at the Cerame, and then, if necessary, go to the city
— but under all circumstances the Marshal was to have
the honour of place.
Eager to childishness, the Portuguese buckled on their
armour and sat all night in the boats, replying to the defiant
shouts of their enemies ; they were of course tired out when
the signal was given at dawn. The Marshal, carried too far
north by the current and encumbered by a field-piece,
only reached the Cerame after it was in the possession of
Albuquerque, who had occupied it after a sharp fight.
Some of the spoil which the Marshal coveted had been
carried for him to his boats, - but when he came up, beside
himself with rage, he ordered it to be thrown overboard,
and called out that he was ashamed to fight naked negroes
who scuttled like goats. He gave his helmet and lance to
his page, shook his cane in the air, and said he would tell
the King what these travellers' tales of India were, and how
he took the Samuri's palace with a cane in his hand and
1 See Yule Glossary, s.v.
- He had promised the King to take back to him the doors of the
Samuri's palace.
9
130 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
a skull cap on his head; Gaspar the Jew was ordered to
lead the way, ' and in spite of Albuquerque's remonstrances
the Marshal started. The palace was three miles off; the
road thither ran along a hollow way on whose high banks
stood houses; the heat and dust were stifling. There was
a continual skirmish with the enemy posted on the high
banks and at every point where a cross road cut through
them ; but the Portuguese in the end won their way to the
palace, where on higher ground they could at least get
some air. a The party spread over the palace to loot, and
arms even were thrown away to allow laden Portuguese
to stagger back under the booty, these men were cut off
by the enemy.
In the meantime, Albuquerque had, to create a diversion,
fired the town, and following the Marshal, prevented the
Nairs closing in on the party in the palace. Repeated
messages were required to rouse the Marshal to a sense
of his position. At length Albuquerque started to fight his
way back to the beach, and the Marshal followed; the
latter was stout, and the heat of midday was great ; he had
thrown off his armour and could with difficulty fend off
the arrows with his shield. As long as the field-piece
could be dragged it kept the enemy at bay ; when the road
was blocked with beams and stones it was abandoned, the
Nairs and Muhamedans closed in, and the Marshal and
his immediate following were killed. 3 Albuquerque had kept
his men in hand, and fought wherever he could see an
enemy, and when he heard the Marshal was in difficul-
ties he tried to return, but the stream of fugitives bore
1 Gaspar disappears after this day, he was probably killed in the rout.
2 The Samuris are still crowned on the mound where this palace once
stood. — Logan, Vol. I. p. 317.
8 See Cartas, p. 79, for a curious account of this retreat — Albuquerque
minimizes the difficulties the parly encountered to prove his then thesis, which
was that Calicut could be easily taken.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1 509— 1 5 1 5 131
him back. An arrow through the left arm ' and a blow
on the head rendered him unfit for further effort; his
standard bearer was killed by his side, and he was carried
off the field on a buckler. Albuquerque had, with great
foresight, left a strong guard at the boats, and with their
help the wounded were embarked. In this disastrous day
the Portuguese lost 300 killed, of whom 70 were fidalgoes ;
and 400 wounded, of whom many died or were maimed for
life. The damage to the Samuri was of course great, but
he retained the field of battle, the Marshal's banner, and
nearly all the arms offensive as well as defensive of the
Portuguese.
Albuquerque had now to restore the discipline impaired
by the late Viceroy's favour to the mutinous captains, and
the morale impaired by the defeat at Calicut. Fortunately,
general opinion recognised that he was not to blame for
the mistake of the Calicut attack. He profited, too, by the
death of the Marshal in retaining his ships and troops, which
else would have returned to Portugal. Albuquerque threw
himself into the work of reorganisation with characteristic
energy, — he formed the soldiers into trained bands and wrote
to Portugal for officers to drill them, he introduced business
habits into all branches of the Government, ' he issued
a number of passes to Muhamedan ships to trade in all
things save spices ; a greater mind had come to the control
of affairs. Like all hardworking men, he neither rested
himself nor gave his subordinates rest, either by night or
by day, it seemed as though the check at Calicut had
spurred him to extra exertion.
The two governors who had independent jurisdiction to
1 He never had the full use of this arm again.
2 Before he introduced them there were no registers either of orders or of
property. Alhuquerque at this time suffered a great loss in the death of his
nephew, D. Afonso de Noronha, wrecked on his return from Socotra.
132 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
the west and east of India were both in difficulties. Duarte
de Lemos had remained within his own limits off Arabia,
where there was no shelter, and nothing to do except be
a pirate. He could get no help from Albuquerque by
writing, and when his ships were so rotten they could
hardly swim, and his crews so weak that they could hardly
navigate, he passed on to India. The other governor, Diogo
Lopes de Sequiera, met with actual disaster, for he was both
careless and indolent. At Malacca he received repeated
warnings both from the captains of Chinese junks, with
whom he had made friends, and from the Malay women
on shore, that an attack was intended, but he had allowed
his boats to be drawn away on the pretence of cargo, and
when the crews and the men in the factory were cut off
from the ships they were attacked. Francisco Serrao, the
friend of Magalhaens, was one of the very few on shore
who got back to the ships, and he only because Magal-
haens and some others went in the only boat left in the
fleet to rescue him; 60 Portuguese were killed and 33, in-
cluding Ruy d'Araujo, the factor, made prisoners. The
Malays refused to restore the prisoners ; the Portuguese
Council decided that without boats they could not attack,
and the fleet sailed away and left their comrades to their
fate. Of his five ships only three returned to India, and his
force would have been smaller but for the devotion of
Magalhaens. At anchor off the Sumatra coast, a junk that
had no anchors was tied to Sequiera's ship : a storm arose and
Sequiera cut the rope and would have left his sailors to
their fate but that Magalhaens saved them at great per-
sonal risk. ' In January 15 10, Sequiera reached the Indian
coast, and hearing that Albuquerque was governor, headed
1 Castanheda, II. 116. It was on his return to Europe after this voyage
that Magalhaens was shipwrecked and stayed by the crew on the reef when all
the other officers abandoned them.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, I 509— 1 5 1 5 133
his own ship straight for Portugal and sent the other two
to Cochin.
By the end of January 15 10 Albuquerque had collected
1,200 Portuguese and a fleet of 23 vessels ; he allowed it to be
believed that his objective was Ormuz and the Red Sea.
It is, however, very doubtful if he entertained such an idea,
for directly he took over charge he had raised the scornful
laughter of Almeida's following by sending to sound the
Goa bar ; and as, whilst De Lemos was in the East, Ormuz
and the Red Sea were within his jurisdiction, and as any
failure of De Lemos would more quickly bring the rever-
sion of his government to himself, Albuquerque was not
likely to help him to success. After a meeting with Timoja,
who has been already mentioned in Almeida's time, the
project of attacking Goa was mooted in a meeting of the
captains, and agreed to. The moment was propitious. Yusaf
Adil Shah, who almost 40 years before had obtained posses-
sion of the city, was just dead, and as was customary, all
the neighbouring potentates were ready to try the mettle
of his successor, Ismail Adil Shah, whose hands were so
full that he had little leisure to devote to Goa. The town
of Goa stands on an island formed by salt-water creeks,
that intersect the narrow belt of level ground which divides
the Western Ghats from the sea. The soil is fertile, and
the situation of the town renders it easily defensible by
sea power. Standing in the centre of the west coast of
India, it was, in the days of ships of light draught, a
peculiarly favourable site for a colony, and for a colony
Albuquerque designed it. '
1 Albuquerque's designs and general policy will, not to break the narra-
tive, be considered later. The early Portuguese writers call the ruler they
found in Goa, the Sabaio, and Albuquerque himself used this word. It was
apparently derived from the information of Gaspar, the Jew, who gave it as
the name of his master when he was captured at Anjadiva. Yule adopted
the explanation of Barros, that it was derived from the name of Yusaf Adil
134 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
The first capture of the town presented no difficulty.
The fleet anchored at the bar, and Albuquerque's nephew,
D. Antonio de Noronha, started with some boats to sound
the channel. Rounding a point, the Portuguese came un-
expectedly on a small fort, which they carried with a rush,
a surprise equally to the victor and the vanquished. Although
the fort was some way from the town, the effect of the capture
was immediate, for Goa capitulated, and on March ist
Albuquerque made his triumphal entry. The spoil was
considerable, — horses, elephants, and dock-yard stores, 16
ships complete, and 8 on the stock-. Timoja was made
Thanadar of the city, an office of profit, as all crimes could
be compounded for a fine, but the old buccaneer was too
hard on the Muhamedans, and at their special request a
coreligionist was appointed over them. '
Two months were busily spent in the arrangement of the
new conquest, when rumours began to circulate that the
troops of Ismail Adil Shah had been seen in motion near
the frontier. The Portuguese, too, were grumbling at being
kept away through the rains from the flesh-pots of Cochin.
Albuquerque had also ordered the execution of a Mu-
hamedan Kazi who had suffocated a Muhamedan to
prevent him turning Christian. The execution was possibly
justifiable, but the Muhamedan community were annoyed
and sided secretly with Ismail Adil Shah. That prince had
Shah's birth-place. He has overlooked the correction of this statement by Couto
(IV. 10. 4), who says that the Sabaio was a Hindu chief in Kanara, whose
sons he knew personally. These sons laughed heartily when Couto read them
Barros's derivation of the word Sabaio; their father, they said, was neither a
Turk nor a Yusaf. The name of this petty Hindu Chief has thus got trans-
ferred in error to the Muhamedan King who held Goa.
1 Albuquerque's verdicts on Timoja vary amusingly, as his moods: on \'<>v.
30th, 15 1 3, he writes — "if any were ever condemned as a traitor and evil,
then Timoja should have been." But the next day he was a ,: Boom homem";
see Cartas, pp. 148, 175, 179. Albuquerque never trusted him after he m
driven from Goa, he suspected him of embezzlement.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509—1515 135
patched up a hasty truce with his enemies on the mainland,
and early in the monsoon months put himself at the head
of his troops to retake Goa. He was dominated by a desire
to get rid of the Portuguese dominion, and he was willing
even to give a site for a fortress to gain this end, but
Albuquerque, when the offer was made, refused to entertain
the idea.
Across the creek that makes Goa an island, there were
certain definite crossing-places where the water was fordable ;
such a frontier could only be defended if the officers
conducting the defence worked harmoniously, but they did
not, and Albuquerque, himself new to this kind of warfare,
did not utilize his forces to the best advantage. In a dark
rainy night on May 16th the creek was crossed, the
artillery in position to defend the fords was lost, and the
whole population rose against the invaders, the very shop-
keepers produced their hidden arms to attack any helpless
Portuguese. By May 23rd, the town was indefensible and
boats were being sunk in the fairway to cut off the retreat
of the ships. Before he left the city Albuquerque, enraged
at the spirit of the townspeople, killed in cold blood the
chief Muhamedans as well as their wives and children,
whom he had collected as his hostages. He reserved a few
of the wealthiest of the Muhamedans to hold to ransom,
the more beautiful of the women to marry to the Portuguese,
and some of the children to turn into Christians. Albuquerque
delayed the advance of his enemies through the streets by
dropping valuables for them to pick up, ' and the Portuguese,
not without heavy loss, reached their ships.
Albuquerque was caught in a trap; Goa was in the
enemy's hands, batteries on the shore commanded the
anchorage, and the bar was impracticable in the south-
1 At Delhi, in 1857, cases of brandy were used for a similar purpose by
the mutineers.
136 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
west monsoon; the very guns mounted in the batteries
were those which had been lost at the fords. The weeks
that followed were a time of great trial ; one of the batteries
was carried by surprise, and this afforded relief, but famine
stared the Portuguese in the face. Some of the Muhamedan
prisoners were ransomed for food, but the crews were reduced
to 4 ounces of biscuit a day. The Adil Shah had prepared
a flotilla of boats to attack the ships ; Albuquerque's counter
stroke was completely successful, but in the flush of victory
his nephew, D. Antonio de Noronha, was mortally wounded.
The loss of D. Antonio de Noronha was felt throughout the
fleet, for he often stood as a mediator between the Governor
and the objects of his sudden passion ; he was " brave, of
" good counsel, and friendly to all, even those who were on the
"worst terms with the Governor, were still friends with him."
There occurred a difficulty immediately after, in which his
advice might have been of assistance. As Albuquerque
discovered that the presence on the ships of the Muham-
edan women led to certain irregularities, he collected
them on the flag-ship. One Ruy Dias, a man of good
birth, was caught in an intrigue with one of them ; he swam
in the night from his own to the flag-ship. Albuquerque
ordered him to be hanged, and hanged he was, but not
before several of the captains had broken into open mutiny. l
Three of the more noisy were invited on board the flag-
ship to see the governor's powers: "These are my powers,"
he said, drawing his sword ; he clapped all three into irons
and gave their ships to others. -
1 It is difficult to follow Camoens in his bitter attack on Albuquerque for
this act.
2 Both Castanheda and Correa have an account of a theatrical carouse of
his famished crews on viands they were not allowed to touch, to deceive the
Adil Shah's Ambassador who came to suggest a peace. Perhaps the Ambas-
sador saw through the device, certainly Albuquerque knew how vital a peace
was to Ismail.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 151 5 137
He took his ships over the bar with considerable risk on
August the 4th; one, the Flor de la Mar, struck and
remained fast in the falling tide. Her crew were ready to
abandon her, but Albuquerque, disregarding the remonstrances
of those around him, went on board her, and stayed there
till she floated off with the next flood.
Albuquerque had good reason to despond; his career
in India so far had been marked only by failure; driven
from Ormuz by the mutiny of his Captains, beaten at
Calicut by the fault of another, at Goa he could impute
his ill success to none but himself. Yet during the weary
time of waiting at the Goa bar, he was forging the discipline
with which during the few remaining years of his life he
was to command success. '
In 1 5 10 three fleets left Portugal for India, one under
Diogo Mendes was destined for Malacca and was independent
of Albuquerque ; the second was composed of adventurers'
cargo boats that could not assist him; the third was only
intended for Madagascar ; there was no help for Albuquerque.
Out of these unpromising materials, however, he began to
strengthen his fleet. Duarte de Lemos had not many
vessels, they could hardly swim, and the commander was
making difficulties by his punctilious claims; but orders
came for him to return to Portugal, and Albuquerque
appropriated his ships and patched them up. Some of
those destined for Malacca, under Diogo Mendes, were private
property, but for all that Albuquerque determined to annex
them. He began by pointing out to Diogo Mendes the
difficulties that Diogo Lopes had encountered, and then
dangled before him the hope that if he would only help
to recover Goa, he should be helped in his attack on
Malacca. Diogo Mendes, whose force unassisted was too
1 It was to his advantage that communication with Europe was so slow.
138 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
weak to deal with Malacca, agreed to assist Albuquerque,
and then he, his captains and pilots had to swear not to
leave India without Albuquerque's permission, and obey
him in everything. Diogo Mendes when he found that he
had been tricked, continued to complain pathetically, and
he was allowed to put in numerous protests in writing, but
he never got his fleet again. Albuquerque was now in fact,
as he soon afterwards became in name, Governor of all the
Portuguese East.
Albuquerque left Cananor on October 3rd, with 1,700
men ' and 28 vessels to attack Goa. At Honawar he
nearly lost his fleet, for while he and the chief officers
were on shore, dining with Timoja to celebrate the latter's
wedding, a storm arose which prevented their returning for
three days, and even then they lost 2 boats and 30 men,
including one of the Governor's secretaries. Ismail Adil
Shah had left the defence of Goa to his Captain, Rasul
Khan, with 8,000 men; he himself had been called off by
the capture of Raichor by the Raja of Vijayanagara. The
Portuguese were doubtful, fearing they could not take the
town, certain they could not hold it if taken, and to
satisfy them Albuquerque gave out that his only intention
was to burn the shipping.
The defences of the city had been strengthened, the
ships especially, which were drawn up on the beach at the
dockyard, were protected by a stockade parallel to the city
wall, that at either end turned in to meet it. The only
communication with the city, except that at either end,
from the yard thus enclosed, was through a narrow door ;
Albuquerque founded his plan of attack on this defect.
Over night, on November 24th, the ships were sent forward
to threaten the city frontage to the east of the stockade ;
1 Cartas, p. 36. give-, I.O80 men of whom 380 were from merchant vessels.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, I 509— 1 5 1 5 139
they served a double purpose, they drew the enemy's
forces to defend a fancied attack at this spot, and they
prevented any reinforcement entering the dockyard from
the eastern end. The attack was made on the stockade
on the morning of November 25th, the day of St. Catherine.
Albuquerque himself, with 600 men, took up a position on
the hillock, where now stands the parochial church of the
Rosary ; his force took little part in the actual fighting, but
it hung on the western flank of the stockade and closed
that end to reinforcements as the fleet closed the eastern.
The defenders of the stockade could, therefore, only be rein-
forced through the one narrow door in the wall. Including
fighting slaves, the Portuguese mustered some 3,000 men,
and of these 1,600 under Joao de Lima and Manuel de
Lacerda, attacked the stockade, which they rushed. The
fugitives blocked the one door and the Portuguese prevented
it being shut by thrusting in their pike staves, while some
of them climbed the wall to the embrasures and thence
drove the defenders from its back; the city was entered
and after much street fighting cleared. For three days the
slaughter continued ; Hindus were spared, Muhamedans,
men, women and children were killed, either individually or
burnt in batches in their mosques; the hill men of the
Ghats even turned out to attack the fugitives, and the
pursuit from the Goa side was continued by native troops
led by banished men, for the work had its danger and if
they were killed it mattered little; the total number of
slain was 6,000. ' The Portuguese had 40 killed and 200
wounded, among the former was Jeronymo de Lima the
brother of Joao de Lima, who led the assault. Struck by
an arrow in the breast he fell, his brother ran to help
him : " Go your way, brother/' said the dying man, " and
1 Albuquerque in his letter of December 22nd, 1510, gives 6,000 "per
comta."
140 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
I go mine;" his brother returned to the fight, and he soon
after died. The plunder was not large as the place had
been used only as a fortress.
Albuquerque allowed no grass to grow under his feet;
within a week of the capture of the city on December 1st,
the foundations of the new fortress were laid. ' The city
walls were repaired, a hospital endowed from the lands
belonging to mosques was started, and a chapel to St. Cathe-
rine built. All these buildings were of mud, thatched ; the
chapel had only an altar and a rude painting on the wall ;
for fear of fire the vessels were kept in a building in the
masonry part of the fort, and there mass was said. There
was a general objection to the return of Timoja to his old
post, he had been involved in several piracies, some on
ships that held Albuquerque's own safe-conduct, and one
Malhar Rao, a relative of the Raja of Honawar, was
appointed, and the revenue and police farmed to him for
^14,000 a year. a The protests of Diogo Mendes continued,
and finding them fruitless, he and two of his captains deter-
mined on a secret flight. They dropped down one night
silently with the t:de ; in the morning their absence was
discovered and Albuquerque sent his galleys after them.
They were overhauled, beating up against the sea breeze ;
fire was opened, two men were killed on Diogo Mendes'
ship and the halliards of his sail shot away ; the three ships
then yielded and were brought back to the anchorage.
Albuquerque hanged two of the pilots ; :1 Diogo Mendes
and the other officers were sentenced to banishment to Por-
1 Thomas Fernandes of Cananor fame was the architect. He also built
the Calicut fort, two years later.
- Cartas, pp. 47 and 48. Timoja was made over to the charge of Malhar Kao,
accompanied him in his flight in 151 1, and was poisoned.
8 The two pilots hanged had been on board the mutinous ships at Ormux.
The King had pardoned them, but Albuquerque refused to accept their state-
ments to that effect as they had not their pardons with them.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1 509— 15 15 141
tugal, Albuquerque's defence of this high-handed action
against a man in independent authority was absolute neces-
sity. ' The Portuguese in the East were too few to split up
the Government, and it is noteworthy that no attempt was
again made for 60 years to divide it. Having given the
finishing touches to the Goa administration, Albuquerque
collected his troops for an expedition against Malacca.
He started on April 20th, 15 n, with 18 ships and 600
men at arms besides slaves.
The town of Malacca stood on either side of a salt-water
creek into which the marshes at the back of the town
drained : communication between houses on either side of
the creek was kept up by a bridge. The thatched and
wooden houses stretched for a league along the shore, but
the danger of fire was so great that merchandize was kept
in underground cellars, closed at the top with clay, called
godowns. The streets were wide, and the houses of the
better sort were surrounded by walls that separated them from
their neighbours and the streets. The marshes guarded the
back of the town and rendered it secure from attack in
that quarter, but the environs were infested by wild beasts,
the air was pestiferous, and no supply of food was locally
produced. The ruling chief was called Sultan Muhamad.
The nationalities the Portuguese found in Malacca were
numerous : there are especially mentioned, Persians, Guze-
ratis, Burmans, Malabaris, merchants from the Coromandel
Coast, and what struck the Portuguese most, ships from
the Lew Chew Islands with crews of people they called
Gores, men of reserved speech and apt to take the law
into their own hands. a On the way Albuquerque touched
at Pedir and Pasai, in Sumatra, and on July 1st anchored
1 See defence in Cartas, page 59, based on necessity,
2 They may have been Japanese.
1 42 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
at Malacca. ' Of the Portuguese who had been made pri-
soners from Diogo Lopes ' squadron, 9 were found in Pedir
whither they had escaped, Ruy d'Araujo and 5 others were
in Malacca, the rest had died or turned Muhamedan. A
demand for the release of the captives was evaded until
Albuquerque burned some houses along the water's edge
and some ships. The further demands of the Portuguese
that they should be given permission to build a fort, com-
pensated for the damage done to Diogo Lopes, and for
the expenses of Albuquerque's fleet, were not accepted :
the Chinese with whom Albuquerque had fraternized suggest-
ed reducing the city by starvation, as the sea-borne supplies
on which the town depended could be easily cut off, but
Albuquerque had no time for this. In all, including slaves,
he could muster 1,100 soldiers, to attack a strongly forti-
fied city defended by 50,000 men. His plan was to seize
the bridge and thus cut the city into two parts.
Either end of the bridge was attacked on St. James's
day, July 25th, but with its capture the success of the
assailants ended, they lost 70 or 80 men wounded and
many of these died. The troops, cowed by the effects of
the poisoned arrows, were withdrawn the same evening.
Recognizing that he was not strong enough to carry the
city by assault, Albuquerque used diplomacy, and opened
communication with Utimute Raja, a Javan who occupied
one side of the town, and obtained his promise to remain
passive. He loaded a lofty junk with materials for rapid
field fortifications, — casks filled with earth to make a
stockade, and field-pieces to fire between them ; beams
to stand in the casks, and sails to stretch from beam to
beam to conceal the men behind ; he also provided an awning
1 See Cartas, p. 59, for the story of the Malay in a captured ship who
fought on though covered with wounds that did not bleed. When a bracelet
of bone was taken from his wrist he bled to death.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 1515 143
for the bridge to shelter the wounded. Tide by tide the
junk was worked nearer the bridge : the full depth of the
spring tides was needed to bring it close, and the second
assault had to be postponed until August 8th. In its slow
approach the men in the junk suffered from the enemy's
fire, and part of the face of its captain, Antonio d'Abreu,
was carried away by a bullet. 1 Once close up to the
bridge the men from the upper works cleared it of its
defenders, and one boat at either end kept all succour
from approaching. With the help of the materials in the
junk the Portuguese were soon fortified on the bridge, and
a mosque hard by was also stormed and occupied as a
subsidiary position.
There followed nine days of street fighting and nine
nights of bombardment before the town was cleared ; 2
after the Malays had been driven out, rough stockades were
built at the outskirts. Safe-conducts were given to some
Hindus, Javans and Burmans who had treated Ruy d'Araujo
with kindness, and a systematic sack of the place began.
The amount of plunder was enormous. Correa, in one of
his rare personal references, says that he had heard Albu-
querque swear that he was bringing home a million in
gold for the King ; the currency is not mentioned. Castan-
heda more soberly puts the King's share at ^95,000. As
almost all, including the bronze lions which Albuquerque
had reserved as ornaments for his own tomb, were lost by
shipwreck, the exact sum can never be ascertained. The
capture of this fortified city defended by an army of 30,000
men, by 1,100 Portuguese was a most brilliant feat, but
1 Albuquerque, hearing of the wound, annoyed d'Abreu greatly by sending
a substitute. He declined to give over charge as long as he had feet to
walk on and hands to fight with.
2 The King's elephants were met in this street fighting and defeated with
lances only.
144 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
characteristically Albuquerque never received even any
verbal acknowledgment from his king for the service. No
time was lost in building a fort with forced labour, it was
completed in four months, on a site defended on one side
by the creek, and on the other by the sea. Ninachetty
was appointed head of the city, into which no Malay was
admitted. Albuquerque next turned his attention to the
Javan colony headed by Utimute Raja. This man was
descended from a Hindu family settled in Java; he had
become a Muhamedan, and fifty years before had migrated
to Malacca, where he had amassed great wealth. Albuquerque
considered him too powerful to be left behind. A friendly
visit was arranged : he, his son, son-in-law and grandson
came to intercede for a friend, whom they desired to see
appointed Kotwal or governor of the city. At this visit
they were all taken prisoners and immediately executed.
This treacherous act was followed by ten days' hard fighting
before Utimute Raja's following was dispersed : subdued
they were not, for under another son-in-law, " Patequatir,"
they remained a thorn in the side of the Portuguese for
many years. An expedition was sent to explore the
Moluccas, and after the return of Duarte Fernandes from
Siam, a more formal embassy was despatched to that State.
The Captain of the fortress also had standing orders that
when any ship left Malacca for a new port a Portuguese
should sail in her to bring back information of the unknown
countries of the further East. '
Albuquerque left 300 men for the garrison of the fort
and 200 for the crews of the ships, and in December
started on his return to India. He had three ships and a
1 Barros, writing in 1545, has a very curious passage in II. 7. 1., in which
he says he has seen letters from Albuquerque to the Royal Chronicler, Ruy
de Pinha, to whom he sent valuable rings. He implies that Albuquerque had,
in modern phrase, tried to influence the press.
ALBUQUERQUE. GOVERNOR, I 509— 1 51 5 145
junk, 111 which last were only 13 Portuguese, the rest of
the crew being Malay craftsmen and their families, sent to
work in Indian dockyards. The spoils of Malacca were in
Albuquerque's ship and the junk ; — the former was the
Flor de la Mar, Joao da Nova's ship at Ormuz, now old
and leaky, and selected as flag-ship because if the governor
had not sailed in her no one else would have. The voyage
was unfortunate: Albuquerque's ship struck on a shoal,
broke in two, and sank just after a raft had been rigged
upon which the Portuguese part of the crew was saved.
All her riches sank in her, and though divers were employed
nothing was ever recovered. The Malay craftsmen in the
junk rose and killed the Portuguese, ran her on shore and
looted her; thus of the plunder of Malacca all was lost.
Early in February 15 12, Albuquerque, to the joy of
almost every Portuguese in India, reached Cochin, for
matters had not been going on well during his absence.
Throughout his whole term he was persistently followed
by a clique of enemies, the most inveterate of whom was
Antonio Real. ' Apparently, in one of his letters, the King
had written recommending this man to Albuquerque's
goodwill. In reply he spoke his mind : " You recommend
" Antonio Real to me — considering how he has abused me,
" calling me thief, Moor and coward, and the confidence you
"place in him, it is I who want a letter of recommendation
''to him." It is needless to rake up all the old scandals, but
this clique intercepted Albuquerque's letters to the King,
read them and published their contents, and it was their
action that in the end ruined Albuquerque. The informa-
tion they sent to Portugal while the Governor was in
Malacca, induced the King to write the querulous complaints
which drew the very angry series of replies that went home
For the history of his son, see page 240.
IO
i 4 6 THE RISE OF PORTUCtUESE POWER IN INDIA
at the end of 1513, replies which led the King to send
out a new governor in 1515. The quarrel with Real began
out of a simple incident. A larger church was needed at
Cochin, and as a commencement a share of the proceeds
of prizes taken at sea was devoted to a building fund.
With i?i6o thus collected some stones and lime were
purchased, and while Albuquerque was absent from Cochin,
Real used the materials partly to repair the fort and partly to
repair his own house. For this Albuquerque fined him heavily.
But the news from Goa was more disquieting than even
the intrigues of faction. After Albuquerque's departure the
forces of Ismail Adil Shah, under Fulad Khan, cleared the
mainland of the Portuguese officials, crossed the fords,
defeated and killed Roderigo Rabello, the Captain of Goa,
and closely besieged the town. ' To the disappointment of
the invaders the townspeople, among whom no Muhamedans
were left, showed no disposition to join them. Diogo Mendes
was taken from the prison where he awaited his removal
to Portugal, and appointed at the general desire to succeed
the dead Captain ; he did not show, however, much sagacity
in his new post, for when Ismail Adil Shah grew suspicious
of Fulad Khan and sent back Rasul Khan to supplant
him, and the latter found himself too weak to take action
alone, the Portuguese actually helped him to defeat and
capture Fulad Khan. Naturally, Rasul Khan once in power,
demanded the cession of Goa itself. The garrison were
1,100 strong, of whom only 450 were Portuguese ; the supply
of food was scanty, though some was obtained by natives
resident in the town, who had relatives cultivating in the
outskirts. By Easter, which in 1 5 12 fell on April 11th, 60
Portuguese had deserted to the enemy, and there was even
a conspiracy in the garrison itself to give up the place.
1 By a fatal error Albuquerque's orders to fortify Uenasterim, that commanded
the chief ford, had been neglected.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, I 509 — 1 5 1 5 147
There were about 100 Europeans in Goa married to
native wives, and their acknowledged leader was the ille-
gitimate son of a Portuguese fidalgo, one D. Fernando,
whose record in Lisbon had been a bad one. Several of
the native wives had been taken prisoners at the capture
of Goa, and some of them had husbands, brothers and
other relatives in Rasul Khan's camp : there was thus a
constant communication between the two forces, and Rasul
Khan had availed himself of this communication to win
over about forty of the married men, including the leader,
to open the gates by night to the invaders. Married men
were, under Albuquerque's arrangements, exempt from night
duty; but their leader, the better to carry out his designs,
suggested to the Captain that at such an anxious time all
must bear their share of the burden. Orders were issued
accordingly; but one married man— Fernao Braz, a barber —
not in the conspiracy, and doubtful how far he could with
safety leave his wife alone in his house, complained loudly
and got a thrashing from D. Fernando for his pains. When
Fernao Braz, sore from his beating, returned home, his
wife who knew the whole story of the conspiracy told it
him, and he immediately disclosed it to the Captain. '
This conspiracy was of course thwarted, but it left an
uncomfortable feeling of insecurity behind, from which the
Portuguese were relieved by the action of Joao Machado,
the banished man then in command of some of Ismail Adil
Shah's troops, for he with eight other Portuguese deserted
and entered Goa. The return of a man who had been so
many years among the Muhamedans and who had risen
to a position of trust among them, not only effectually
stopped any further desertions, but supplied the Portuguese
with much information as to their enemies' forces and plans ;
1 The history of this conspiracy was concealed, as the manned men were
implicated, and there was no public enquiry.
i 4 S THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
but the garrison was not strong enough to undertake any
operations outside the town. Albuquerque, who learned on
his arrival at Cochin that Rasul Khan was strongly fortified
in Benasterim, 6 miles from the walls of Goa, was not,
either, in a position to go at once to its relief; men and
arms were both greatly needed, and he had therefore to
await the arrival of the ships of 15 12. ' In these ships came
1,800 men as reinforcements, and the first matchlocks sent
from Europe. 2
In October the relieving force left Cochin, and Goa was
reached on November 8th. The operations which followed
for the relief of Goa were among the most gallant of
Albuquerque's exploits, and his letter to the King describing
the event brings out vividly the devotion he inspired in
his men. 5 Benasterim fort stood on the Goa bank of the
creek that made Goa an island. l The fort had been
strongly built under the orders of Rasul Khan, and two
lines of beams at either side of the ford served to defend
those crossing from the mainland and to prevent an attack
on them by boats. The fort could be approached by-
water from either side, either by the creek passing north
from old Goa, or by that coming south from the Goa river ;
Albuquerque selected the former route for his first advance.
While the ford connecting the fort with the mainland was
in the hands of the garrison, any attempt to capture the
fort from the land side would have been a lengthy
operation ; the first thing then was to cut the line of
1 Cartas, pages 42 and 91.
4 Conea, the historian, came out in this fleet.
* Cartas, p. 101, dated Nov. 23rd, 1512. I have added anecdotes of
Albuquerque's heroism from the historians. He called his sailors " my
cavaliers."
* Benasterim is not marked on the Indian atlas, hut is marked on the
map to Fonseca's Goa. In the former it should stand where the road from
Goa to Hurcan crosses the creek
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, I 509— 151 5 149
communication, the isolated fort could after that be attacked
with some hope of speedy success. The river face of the
fort was defended by a numerous artillery trained along
the water line, and to attack this Albuquerque specially
prepared six vessels, covering them with coils of rope and
with planking. In the one that was to approach nearest
to the walls an inverted boat was slung over the deck to
fend off missiles — raw hides were freely used as a pro-
tection from fire. The men at arms were removed from
the vessels, and only sailors and gunners left; the fewer
the men the less the chance of their being hit.
Albuquerque sat in the leading boat that towed these
armoured vessels. Near the fort a Malabar man was shot
close to him, and the garrison, seeing the blood sprinkled
on Albuquerque, raised a shout that he was killed ; standing
up amidst the cheers of his own men he disabused them.
He berthed his ships a gunshot from the walls, to let his
crews lose their fear of the artillery, and though the ships
were pierced through and through by the shot, but few
men were killed. In return the ships did some damage
to the fort, but as they could not subdue some heavy
guns served by renegades, Albuquerque made a raft,
mounted on it a powerful gun in charge of a master
gunner and six gunners; and anchored the contrivance by
night close under the walls; his orders to the gunners were
to fire only at the enemy's big guns. They were successful
and the renegades were killed. On one ship, the Rosario,
owing to an explosion, the deck and the forecastle were
blown into the air; the crew in a panic jumped into the
water, and the captain only was left in the burning vessel.
Albuquerque got into a skiff alone with some oarsmen and
shamed the crew into returning to help their captain, the
flames were extinguished and the ship was temporarily
withdrawn from the line of fire. When the fire of the fort
150 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
had been got under and the Portuguese crews were
seasoned, Albuquerque grappled the beams that guarded
the ford, pulled them out and cut the crossing. He never
left the ships during the whole eight days' fighting, till he
saw the San Pedro anchored in the ford with her bowsprit
touching the walls of the fort. In these eight days the
ships had fired 4,000 rounds from their big guns; the hulls
of the vessels were riddled, and the masts, rigging and
decks were studded with arrows. '
The land forces had meanwhile been organized. Soon
after Albuquerque's return to Goa, the beacon fires and
the church bells warned the citizens that Rasul Khan was
advancing to deliver an attack against the town. Albu-
querque was against any fighting before he was quite
prepared, as he thought, and rightly as it turned out, that
the Muhamedans would not await the onset; he was,
however, overborne by the eagerness of his men, who
got out of hand at the sight of the enemy, drove them
back to the walls of their fort, which they then tried to
scale without ladders, and from which they were beaten
with the loss of 1 50 men. Albuquerque, delighted at the
bravery of Pero Mascarenhas who commanded the trained
bands, kissed him on the cheek and nearly caused a mutiny
by the signal honour. " A few days' battering at a short
range compelled the garrison to capitulate, and had not
Albuquerque demanded the surrender of the deserters the
garrison would have yielded sooner. Rasul Khan left secretly,
and but for the arrangements of Albuquerque the garrison,
1 The captains and the men were deaf for some days after. The hulls of
the vessels could not sink as they had shores under them.
s All the historians are agreed on the incident. Castanheda adds that one
fidalgo turned the general indignation into a bitter laugh by saying, "Seho
Governador por cousa Lao pouca beijava na face a Peru Mascarenhas avia
dalia poucos dias de beijar a eles no traseiro por ourros muyto grandes que
aviao de fazer." III. 91. Mascarenhas was, in 1526, Governor for a short time.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 1515 151
including many women and children, could not have escaped
to the mainland. Reinforcements from the Adil Shah arrived
shortly after the fort was surrendered and had to retreat.
The deserters were given up by Rasul Khan on a promise
that their lives should be spared, but the promise was kept
to the letter and not to the spirit. " I gave them their
" lives at the request of Rasul Khan, but I ordered their
" limbs to be mutilated and amputated and their ears cut
" off, for a warning and in memory of the treason and evil
"that they did." ' Of the 19 surrendered, half died under
the tortures, and at the end of the three days the survivors
were hardly human in form. The after history of two of
them is recorded. One, Pedreannes " of the hands ", lived
in Cochin for 20 years doing menial acts of charity ; another,
Fernao Lopez, was the first colonist of St. Helena, living
as a hermit and raising vegetables for passing ships. By
order of the King of Portugal he was brought to Europe
and received absolution from the Pope in Rome, but he
returned to St. Helena and died there in 1546.
The numbers of envoys from the countries of India ' and
its neighbourhood that waited on Albuquerque's pleasure,
was of itself sufficient to show the status that the conquest
of Goa had given the Portuguese among Eastern powers.
Ormuz, Siam, Pegu, Guzerat, and Abyssinia all appear in
the goodly list. At Ormuz there had been some changes,
for Albuquerque's old opponent, Khwaja Atar, was dead,
and Nuru-d-din had succeeded him ; the King too had
accepted the "cap" from Shah Ismail of Persia and
acknowledged himself to be an adherent of the Shia sect.
1 Cartas, page 116.
* In 1 5 14 the Portuguese received a rhinoceros as a present from the Sultan
of Guzerat. It was then an almost unknown animal, and was sent to Portugal,
nnd being sent on to the Pope it died just as it reached the Italian shores.
It is the very animal immortalized by Diirer. Castanheda's description — III.
134 — is quaint. The Portuguese used the Hindi name Genda.
152 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
There was something here to be remembered when the
time of reckoning came, but in the meanwhile the embassy
was complimentary, and there was the horse trade that
called for immediate regulation. No horses suited for military
purposes were bred in Southern India ; all used there were
imported from the Persian Gulf. It was a matter of life
and death to the states warring in the Deccan to obtain
the command of this horse supply, and Albuquerque intended
to control it by his power at sea and bring all the imported
horses to Goa, whereby he would gain two objects, — fill
his coffers by the high import duty charged, £ ij a
horse, and obtain command of a lever that would give him
great influence in Deccan politics. The thorny question of
Persian rights over Ormuz could therefore wait ; it was
enough for the present to settle that horses exported from
Ormuz should be consigned to Goa. In 1514 Vijayanagara
offered £ 20,000 for the exclusive right to buy 1 ,000 horses,
but Albuquerque rightly refused the offer on the ground
that such an exclusive privilege would destroy the trade
he was trying to foster ; his mind, however, constantly reverted
to the idea: it is better than any gold mine, he explains. '
The Abyssinian envoy was undoubtedly the one of all
the envoys that roused the most interest in Albuquerque's
mind, as his arrival was the first result of the many years
of effort to reach that semi-mythical prince. Even now the
message was brought by a doubtful messenger. The man
was a Cairo Muhamedan, who said that he had been made
a Christian, with the name Matheus — that the King of
Abyssinia had sent him off at an hour's notice as his envoy
to the Portuguese, and that he had been robbed both at
Zeila and at Dabul. He had some letters done up in a
wax cloth, and a piece of wood wrapped in a rag. which
1 Cartas, page 343.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1 509— 1 5 1 5 153
he said was part of the true cross. He was first heard of
with his wife in Dabul, and Albuquerque got him from
there by a stratagem lest the Muhamedans should intercept
him. He questioned him, and found that he knew of the
two men whom Albuquerque had landed some years before
at Cape Guardefni, disguised as Muhamedan merchants, who
had been robbed by the Portuguese ; and that, on the other
hand, the Abyssinian captives in India knew him. Albuquerque
argued too in his favour that there could be nothing to
gain by a forged embassy : the Egyptians could discover
all they needed without a cumbrous scheme from which
there was no escape for the envoy except to be landed on
Abyssinian soil. It turned out many years later when he
was taken back to Massowah, that Matheus was a genuine
envoy ; but the wretched man had to suffer indignities of
all kinds from the faction opposed to Albuquerque, who
took advantage of the Governor's absence to cruelly misuse
the unfortunate ambassador and his wife. To give greater
weight to the Embassy, Albuquerque had constructed, as
he told the king some time afterwards, two gold caskets,
one for his letters of credence and one for the piece of the
true cross. ]
Meanwhile the preparations for a voyage to the Red
Sea had been progressing, and on February 7th, 15 13,
Albuquerque left Goa with 1,700 Portuguese and 1,000 natives
of India in 24 ships. In Goa he left a garrison of 400
men, and in Cochin and Cananor 80 men each. Southern
India could be left comparatively weak, as negotiations
with the Samuri for a peace were far advanced. 2 The
objects of this expedition were to explore the shores of
1 See Cartas, pp. 312 — 316 aud p. 381. The part of his letter of Oct. 15th,
1514, in which he confesses how he had been in the habit of furbishing up
the gifts of Indian princes to increase the honour of the King of Portugal
is interesting.
2 Cartas, page 125.
154 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
the Red Sea as yet unvisited by a Portuguese fleet; to
destroy any preparations the Egyptians might be making
for a fresh invasion of India; to open up communications
with the Prester John and to stop the Red Sea traders who
still evaded in large numbers the Indian blockade. Since
the Portuguese first rounded the Cape and interfered with
the Muhamedan trade by Jedda, Aden had risen considerably
in importance as the place of transhipment of Indian goods ;
the Portuguese, too, had learned that it and not Socotra
was the gate of the Red Sea, it therefore was the first place
to be attacked. After watering at Socotra, the fleet reached
Aden on March 25th; Mir Amrjan was the Captain of the
city, under Shaikh Hamid who was absent. As it was Albu-
querque's intention to capture the town no time was wasted
in preliminaries, and on the morning of March 26th the attack
was delivered. The whole conception of the operations — if
such a term can be applied to what was merely a confused
melee —was faulty. Ladders had been brought from Cochin
wide enough to admit six men abreast, but they proved
too short; the water shoaled rapidly, and in wading from
the boats the matchlock men's powder got wet. After
landing, 100 men were sent to make a diversion higher up
the hill where the wall seemed lower, but they were driven
back by rocks rolled down. The rest planted their ladders
against the part of the wall nearest to them and climbed
up. The ladders were not only too short, but broke under
the weight of the crowds, and Albuquerque, in his endeavour
to mitigate the evil by telling off halberdiers to hold up
the ladders with their halberds, aggravated the misfortune,
for the halberdiers were smothered and the stormers spitted. '
1 A curious story is told by Castanheda, interesting as I). Garcia de Xoronha
was afterwards Viceroy. He forced open an embrasure and ordered some
men in, they refused ; they were ready to follow him. but he was not their
Governor to order them.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1 509— I 5 1 5 155
Some fifty men gained the top of the wall, and among them
a priest, Diogo Mergulhao, who held a cross raised on a
spear, but the brave man had to retire with six wounds,
and his cross was held under an arm pinned by two arrows.
The efforts were continued for some time ; many were killed
inside the walls, and many, jumping from them, saved their
lives at the expense of broken legs; five bannarets were
lost in the city, — the total number of killed is nowhere
recorded. After the Portuguese had retired in great disorder
to their ships, Albuquerque and his captains had a long
and anxious consultation as to whether they should attack
an outlying fort whose artillery fire was causing the ships
some damage. But by the time the council had decided that
an attempt should be made they found the work done ; the
master and sailors of Manuel de Lacerda's ship had landed
in a skiff, with their swords and lances, and captured the
fort and 27 pieces of artillery. '
Failing here, Albuquerque sailed for the Red Sea. The
Red Sea pilots of those days lived on an island close to
Perim, and one was secured by sending forward as a decoy
an Indian built ship. The passage of the first Portuguese
fleet through the Straits of Babel-Mandeb was the occasion
of much ceremony. On the way north Albuquerque's vessel,
the Santa Maria da Serra, was nearly lost by striking on
a shelf of sand, on either side of which was deep water ;
in gratitude for his escape from this danger he afterwards
built the chapel of Nossa Senhora da Serra in Goa,
where he was buried. s Passing Jebel Zukr, the fleet made
its way to Kamaran. Kamaran Island is about 1 1 miles
1 The news of the attack reached Cairo by land in 15 days. Albuquerque
blamed no one for this failure. " It was a well fought out affair " is his comment.
2 Albuquerque continued his horrible mutilations on all the people he
captured in the Red Sea, except the residents of Kamaran from whom he
hoped for some benefits.
156 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
long with a few villages of fishermen, some cultivation and
a few cattle and sheep ; at this time it belonged to the
Imam of Sanaa ; its chief attraction was its plentiful supply
of good water. Watering was completed as quickly as
possible, and then the fleet started for Jedda ; but the wind
failed, and after beating about fruitlessly till the end of
May, it returned to Kamaran, where it stayed till the middle
of July. The crews spent here a terrible time; there was
very little food save shell-fish ; every living thing on the
island, down to the roots of the palm trees, was eaten, and
the hard work of cleaning and caulking the ships in the
trying climate of a Red Sea summer, combined with the
bad food, caused a great mortality — 500 Portuguese and
nearly all the natives of India died ; no prizes even could
be made, for, partly through fear of the invaders and partly
owing to the season of the year, there were no ships on
the sea. ' The halt was not altogether wasted, as the
minute acquaintance with the Red Sea which Albuquerque's
letters exhibit, proves the care he devoted to acquiring
information. A man at arms, Fernao Dias, a north African,
was dressed as an escaped slave and landed to find his
way overland to Portugal, where he duly arrived in safety.
Albuquerque is credited with having, while in the Red Sea,
hit upon the idea of destroying Egypt by diverting the
Nile into the Red Sea, but the idea was in no sense his
own ; it was a traditional scheme which had been handed
down from generation to generation of Abyssinians. ' His
excitable imagination, however, did take fire at the possibility
of capturing Mecca: "Jedda and Mecca," he says, "have no
" men at arms, only hermits ; there are plenty of horses and
" plenty of men in Prester John's country. What can 3,000
1 Id Albuquerque's letters no mention is made of this time — a curious
instance of suff>ressio vert.
1 Castro Roteiro of the voyage of 1541, page 74.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1 509— 15 15 157
" Moors do against 500 Portuguese mounted on horses? if
"500 will not do, take 1,000. Mecca is so easy to destroy,
" I look on it as already destroyed." ' The imagination in
Albuquerque was unduly developed.
The fleet left Kamaran on its return journey on July
15th. Perim was examined and pronounced unfit for a
fortress by reason of its want of water. a Aden was reached
on July 25th, and ten days were spent there; but the place
was stronger than before, and the weakened fleet could do
nothing. On August 4th the expedition started for Diu,
which it reached on the 1 6th ; Albuquerque's intention was
to surprise the place, but two of his captains lost touch
of the fleet, blundered into the harbour and caused an alarm,
consequently the Governor's relations with Malik Aiyaz
were strained. The latter refused to visit him on his ship :
" He knows he could come on board," said Albuquerque, " but
" he does not know if he could get off again." As Albuquerque
was starting, Malik Aiyaz came out with his flotilla, and
the two fleets saluted; the former was much impressed by
the latter: "He always has his leg lifted ready for a kick,"
was his comment. A visit paid to Chaul on the way
back was so far noteworthy that Albuquerque saw its
importance as the site for a fortress, and it was in consequence
of his opinion that one was built there some years later.
Albuquerque reached Goa in September and remained
there for 18 months, the longest rest he took in the last
years of his life. 3 He found much to occupy him, for his
frequent absences had disorganized the internal affairs of
the Portuguese in India, and the presence of a strong hand
1 Cartas, p. 281. He calls Muhamedans "Alfenados" — the henna-dyed ones.
2 Albuquerque calls it "Mihum" — his name for it of Vera Cruz has of
course not survived.
3 The sententious Barros, speaking of this period, has an astounding maxim:
"Whoever fights has the glory of conquering his enemies, but he who governs
only acquires the hatred of his subordinates."
158 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
was much needed. Before Albuquerque left for the Red
Sea, negotiations had been opened with the Samuri for a
peace, but during his absence the Rajas of both Cochin and
Cananor, who disliked such a peace, had intrigued to prevent
it. The Samuri himself was obstructive, and, as he tells
us in his letters, Albuquerque incited the heir-apparent to
poison his relative and sovereign. The new Samuri was a
more pliable instrument — peace was signed and the fortress
built. The Cochin Raja was also annoyed at the growth
of Goa ; the Portuguese ships there spent money which he
considered should have been spent in Cochin. He joined,
therefore, Antonio Real and the faction opposed to Albu-
querque in urging the King of Portugal to abandon Goa;
and on his return from the Red Sea, Albuquerque found
a despatch awaiting him, directing that the question of the
retention of that place should be considered in a council
of the fidalgoes, and that it should be abandoned if the
council did not consider that it was for the King's interest
that it should be retained. The council voted in accordance
with Albuquerque's wishes, but the despatch caused him
much annoyance, The King even went out of his way to
gird at him, by saying that he did not after all seem to
have done much when he took Goa. Albuquerque's reply
was haughty : " But I have enough to praise myself for to
" tickle my own vanity, and enough to delight in to please
"myself." ' " At first," he says to the king, " I was astounded
"at your order to consider the abandonment of Goa in a
" public council, and when I saw the letters on which you
" had based your orders I was still more astounded that
"you had not burned them." J In the bitterness of his soul
he wrote more openly to a friend — " There are men who,
" knowing that I have set my heart on retaining Goa, have
1 Cartas, p. 184.
- Cartas, p. 260.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509 — 15 1 5 150
" done their best to thwart me, but I tell you, sir, I do
11 not understand this business. I thought the King had Goa
" like a stone set in a ring. I took it at his orders and his
" captains signed their agreement ; I took it, and strengthened
"myself in it, considered it my companion and helper; I
" leaned my back against it, and I trusted it freely. By it
" we got a foothold in India and destroyed the dock-yard
" of the Moors. Now no one can order us not to touch
"the Moors, nor can the Raja of Cochin demand the life
"of a Portuguese for that of a cow. It is the chief port
" of India for the Deccan, for Vijayanagara, and for Europe.
" In Cochin you cannot get supplies for 500 men ; there is
"no fish and no flesh, and fowls there are sixpence each.
" In Goa 2,000 men extra are hardly noticed. In a foreign
" country you cannot cut a stick without permission ; and
" in the bazaar, if you do not pay what you owe, or if you
" touch a Moor woman or wound a man of the country,
"swords are drawn at once and the fortress is besieged." '
The feeling produced by the tenor of the letters from
Portugal, combined, perhaps, with a sense of failure in the
Red Sea, and certainly with anger at the encouragement
his opponents received from his sovereign, gave a painfully
bitter tone to Albuquerque's letters at this time; none the
less, however, he devoted all his energy to the responsibil-
ities which his post threw on him. One of his enterprises,
the conversion of the Raja of Cochin, which he undertook
at the orders of the King of Portugal, and with Duarte
Barbosa as interpreter, was naturally not successful. His
methods as a missionary were too much like his methods
as a military leader. He of course knew that the attempt
was hopeless, and that if he had been successful the
Christian Raja would have lost all authority over the Nairs,
1 Cartas, p. 410.
i6o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
he was consequently satisfied with the assurance of the Raja
that so important a matter deserved mature consideration. '
To remedy the imperfect training of the matchlock-men
in the use of their weapons, Sunday trials of skill were
started for prizes, and each man was given half a pound
of powder and half a pound of lead a month to enable
him to practise. Every man was encouraged to take his
pride in having the best appointed arms, and in knowing
how to use them. In the evening, when the bell sounded
twice, the fidalgoes had to accompany the governor in his
ride, to accustom themselves to native saddles. Every
morning the governor, with a stick in his hand and a straw
hat on his head, rode out, accompanied by four clerks with
paper and ink, who noted all orders and memorandums
and got them signed at once. During these rides many
complaints were disposed of summarily and to the satisfaction
of the parties, which, if they had got into the ordinary
channel, would have been indefinitely spun out and have
become correspondingly involved. He had no stated times
or seasons, but disposed of business whenever he met with
it and had leisure. a His description of his own method
will be found in a very interesting letter to the King, in
which he discusses his secretary, Gaspar Pereira, who, like
the clerk of many an Indian court in more recent times,
would have liked " to have put the petitions in his pocket
"and settled the matter behind closed doors." s
From May to October, Pero d'Albuquerque was in Ormuz,
1 Cartas, p. 367.
2 Correa, II. 395, has a curious and detailed story of one Jodo Delgado,
a ruffian who tried to poison Albuquerque. The visit to the prison when
Correa was with Albuquerque is very graphically told, but the passage is
too long to quote.
3 Cartas, pp. 284 to 291, Albuquerque says that Pereira disliked "Minim
domestica COnversacdo e trato cos cavaleiros e fidalgoes c ter companheiro
delles."
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 1515 161
whence he explored the Persian Gulf as far as Bahrein,
and it was on the information which he brought back that
Albuquerque determined to visit Ormuz, for he found him-
self, when the cargo ships were despatched, with an abso-
lutely empty treasury and with no money to pay his men
the wages they had earned. l In the universal peace which
then obtained there were no prizes to be captured, of the
hospitality of the Red Sea he had had bitter experience,
and Ormuz was his only resource. This confession of his
letters is of the greatest importance, for under the founder
of the Portuguese rule in the East and under its most
successful governor that rule was not self-supporting, pos-
sibly had his term been longer he might have made it so.
The Ormuz expedition consisted of 1,500 Portuguese
besides some Malabar troops " and slaves, that in all amounted
to almost 3,000 men, conveyed in 27 vessels, and it left
Goa on February 21st, 1515, for Ormuz, which it reached
on March 26th. 3 In the six and a half years that had elapsed
since Albuquerque's last visit, matters had changed con-
siderably. After the death of the then King, his brother,
Saifu-d-din, had succeeded; Kwaja Atar was dead and
Nuru-d-din the Minister was a Persian, old and gouty, who had
called in to his help a distant relative, an able and masterful
man called Rais Hamid. Hamid, after filling all subordinate
posts with his own dependants, had become powerful enough
to imprison Nuru-d-din ; rumour had it that he meant to
depose the King and seize the vacant throne, but this
1 Cartas, p. 345.
3 The Malabar men got 13* 4</ a month each.
3 There is a curious story by Correa, who was in the expedition, of the
jest of the galleys under Sylvester the Corsican, into the spirit of which
Albuquerque entered fully. (II. 406). This Sylvester was a difficult person to
deal with, not only Albuquerque found it so, but also his successors. As to
Albuquerque, see Cartas 301 and 375. Lopo Soares was quite unable to tame
his fiery spirit. (Correa, II. 533.) He had been sent out in 15 14 as capable
in the management of galleys.
11
162 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
would seem to have been superfluous. Hamid had the
assistance of Shah Ismail (1499 — 1525) who had raised
himself by his abilities to the Persian throne, and one of
the latter's envoys, Ibrahim Beg, was in Ormuz when
Albuquerque arrived ; it is natural therefore that Albuquerque
should have come to the conclusion (which was correct) that
Rais Hamid and the Shah of Persia were in league and
that if he intended to act he must act quickly, or any
chance of obtaining a footing in Ormuz would be gone.
Albuquerque's demands were for the arrears of tribute and
for possession of the site granted for a fortress at his first
visit. Nuru-d-din had been released when the Portuguese fleet
hove in sight, and at an interview with him the demands
were agreed to, and that although part of the old site had
been covered with buildings connected with the royal palace.
What was almost more important, Albuquerque managed
to get some private conversation with the old minister and
to learn that he could count on the assistance both of him
and of the king in any attempt to get rid of Rais Hamid.
Possession was obtained of the site on April 1st, and
in three days it was enclosed in a stockade, with artillery
mounted. This settled, Albuquerque, who never lost sight
of the necessity of impressing the oriental imagination,
received the Persian, Ibrahim Beg, with great pomp. This
envoy returned to Persia on August 10th, and took with
him a Portuguese mission, but owing to the events in Ormuz
its reception was the reverse of friendly and it had to beat
a hasty retreat out of Persia. Rais Hamid had not yet
visited Albuquerque, but remained sullenly in his own house ;
rumour of course credited him with the intention of assas-
sinating Albuquerque, and in a secret conference of Por-
tuguese captains it was resolved to anticipate any possible
action of this character on his part. The king and his
minister, accompanied by Rais Hamid, were invited to visit
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509—1515 163
Albuquerque at his house in the stockade on April 18th,
it being agreed that either side should be accompanied by
only eight unarmed men ; in spite of this agreement Albu-
querque filled the rooms of the house, other than the reception
room, with armed men and kept more troops ready hard
by. Immediately with Albuquerque were his most trusted
companions, who had coats of mail under their clothes and
their daggers handy. Rais Hamid admitted first into the
house alone and fully armed, was hustled with little ceremony
into the presence of Albuquerque, ' who reproached him
for wearing weapons. The unfortunate man saw when too
late the fate that awaited him, and caught the tag of
Albuquerque's coat to beg for safety, but the word was
given, and before even he could cry out Albuquerque's
companions had despatched him with their daggers, cutting
each others hands in their eagerness. a
The murder was hardly completed, and the dependants
were still wrangling over the dead man's clothes, when
Albuquerque advanced smilingly, met the trembling king,
and congratulated him on the death of an enemy. Though
music had been playing to drown the noise, the people of
the town grew suspicious and tried to break into the house ;
they were quieted when with great difficulty the thoroughly
frightened king and his minister were induced to show
themselves on the flat roof of the house. The brother of
the murdered man, with 700 fighting men besides women
and children, occupied the royal palace : it took much
diplomacy to get them embarked and started for the
mainland before night. On this day, the 18th, the Portu-
guese were under arms from morning till evening, and were
1 Alexander d'Ataide seized him by the hand and pulled him along.
2 The body was hardly on the ground before the followers stripped it.
Correa gives a vivid touch to the picture when he says he took the dead
man's gold embroidered kerchief, which he sold for £7.
1 64 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
supplied with food by the servants of the king ; we get a
martial picture of Albuquerque himself eating his mess of
rice and meat cooked together, standing with his shield
pushed up his arm and his spear leaning against his shoulder.
That night the king returned to his palace. Albuquerque
improved the occasion by wringing a large sum of money
from the king. '
The foundations of the fort were laid on May 3rd : the
ceremony had not yet become the symbol it now has. The
procession was headed by priests who prayed and sprinkled
holy water and blessings; on reaching the trench, a cloth
was placed on Albuquerque's shoulder, and on it a stone,
which he carried to the trench and laid, with five gold
coins underneath it. He was followed by the other captains
each with his stone. The work was pushed on with even
more than Albuquerque's usual energy : his efforts never
relaxed all through the terrible heats of June and July,
day by day and all day he was arranging the food of the
men and the supply of materials for the work. Deprived
even of fresh water for bathing, the natives of India sickened
and by August nearly all were dead ; 300 of the Portuguese
had succumbed. Complaints were made that the doctors
who were paid to look after the sick exacted money from
them. When Albuquerque sent for and questioned them
as to the nature of the sickness from which the men were
suffering, they replied that they could not give it a name.
"I will soon teach you," said the hard old man, "more
than your books can ever tell you," and he set them to
work at the walls all through the long hot day. "Now,"
he said, "you know the disease, and be careful you do
not come to the galleys."
Early in August the iron constitution of Albuquerque
1 Correa says £350,0x30, which is absurd. Cartas, p. 371. puts the amount
at £40,000, which is possibly correct.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 15 15 165
began to give way ; he was attacked by diarrhoea, then
prevalent, and his weak and spare frame had no reserve
of strength to resist the disease. In spite of his uncle's
request to remain, D. Garcia de Noronha started on August
29th for India, on his way to Portugal ; he took with him
the 1 5 unfortunate relatives of the King of Ormuz — sufficiently
important to have been considered worthy of blinding ; '
they and their families were settled in Goa. In September
the Governor got worse, and for 21 days was seen by no
one but his private servants ; then, to stifle the disorder that
the rumour of his death might cause, he had his bed
removed to a window where he could talk with his captains
and watch the progress of the work. On October 20th,
after nominating Pero d'Albuquerque as Captain of Ormuz,
he prepared to return to India in the ship of his old Red
Sea flag-captain, Diogo Fernandes de Beja, who had been
badly wounded at the attack on Aden. With all his faults
Albuquerque was greatly beloved by his comrades, and his
last farewell of them was touching. He started on November
8th, and crossing the Arabian Sea, he learnt from a passing
ship, not only that he had been superseded, but that his
successor was his personal opponent, and that the men
whom he had sent to Portugal in disgrace had returned
to India in high employment. There was no word for him
from the King even of gratitude for past services, it was
his death-blow. His friends tried to amuse him by saying
the King would give him high employment in Portugal :
"Portugal is a small country," he replied; "what employ-
ment is there that is one-half of one-third of that of the
Governor of India? I have sacrificed to one saint — the
1 They had been blinded by passing a red-hot bowl close to the eyes.
The practice seems to have ceased after the Portuguese obtained influence in
Ormuz. Couto had talked with old residents in Goa who remembered some
of these men begging by the roadside and asking alms as deposed kings.
166 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
King. I am out with the King because of men, and I am
out with men because of the King."
He made his will, and in leaving his last wishes to his
successor his old humour flashed out: " I beg he will not
put up my goods to auction : I do not wish my ragged
old breeches to be seen." ' His last letter to the King was
dignified and pathetic — a letter hard perhaps to have to
write, but certainly harder to receive. 2 He longed with a
feverish longing to see Goa before he died, and with a
last effort he stood up as the ship crossed the bar, and
leaned against the door frame to get yet one more view.
Early on Sunday, December 16th, as the ship was casting
anchor in front of Goa, he died, dressed as he wished, in
the habit of the order of St. James. In the morning, seated
almost upright, with his eyes half open, with the captains
of the fleet around, and his royal banner which preceded
him in battle unfurled before him, he was taken on shore
to the chapel he had built. The grief of the people of Goa,
whether Christians or not, was deep and general. " He has
only gone," said the lower sort, "because God has need of
him to fight battles elsewhere." His tomb for many years
was a refuge where the oppressed, bringing sweet-smelling
flowers, came to pray, and the jealousy of his successor
was aroused by the number that visited his resting-place to
pour out their complaints to him as if he had been alive.
The men fresh from Portugal were unable to understand
this outburst of sorrow for a man they had heard so vilified.
The best epitaph, indeed, that Albuquerque can have is the
grief of the city he founded.
The King of Portugal recognized too late the mistake
he had made, and before the news of Albuquerque's death
1 Lopo Soares did put up his goods to auction, but they were so poor
that they redounded to the credit of the great Governor.
- Cartas, page 380, December 6th, 15 15.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509 — 1515 167
could reach him, he wrote, in March 15 16, modifying his
orders as to Albuquerque's return. His superstitious mind,
too, paid that respect to Albuquerque's clay which he
never extended to the living man. To the day of his death
the King would never allow the body to be removed to
Portugal: "As long as his bones are there, India is safe.''
The people of Goa were equally superstitious, and it was
only after a papal bull had been fulminated, threatening
the obdurate city with dire punishment, that the body could
be removed. It reached Lisbon on April 6th, 1 566.
Albuquerque was 62 years of age at his death. He was
the second son of Gongalo de Albuquerque and Donna
Lianor de Menezes his wife. The bar sinister came in his
pedigree several times, and he could claim descent from
the Royal Houses of both Portugal and France. He is
described as being of medium height, well made, spare of
flesh, with a long face, high colour, and a beard reaching
to his waist, that in his later years was white. He was
never married, and left an illegitimate son by a negress.
He was like most men of his age, pitiless and cruel, but
he had a keen love of justice. He kept no doorkeeper, and
his door was never closed save for a short time while he
slept after dinner. It was his maxim that, though the
Muhamedans had been conquered, having once submitted,
they should be treated with more than even justice to
attach them by love. ' Just before he started for Ormuz in
1 5 15, two Portuguese galley captains committed a petty
theft from a Muhamedan boat, the captain of Goa, however,
pooh-poohed the matter, for the accused were Portuguese
and captains of galleys, the complainant a mere Muhamedan.
The persistent Muhamedan went straight to Albuquerque
and found him just getting off his horse after his morning's
1 This, which may seem a commonplace, must be judged by the then
standards.
168 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
ride, but on hearing the story the Governor returned
directly to the shore and investigated the case. Not only
the two thieves, but also the masters of their galleys who
had held their tongues over their captains' thefts, and the
Captain of Goa himself were heavily punished.
He was full of jest and humour, some of it perhaps
rather bitter. Some fifteen months before his death he was
nearly cast away in Cananor, and the ship lay all night
thumping on the rocks. Albuquerque tied a cloth round
his waist with a long rope that his body might be
recognized if he were drowned, and called out to the
weeping and praying crew: "The Lisbon busy bodies will
say: What a great man your Indian Governor is that you
must put him in a cloth and tie a rope around him lest
no one should recognize him when he is dead." He, too,
is the originator of what was copied by a succeeding
Governor, D. Joao de Castro. One pay-day the money
ran short, and a native who came too late complained
loudly that he was dying of hunger. Albuquerque pulled
two hairs from his beard and gave them to him, saying:
"I swear by the life I am living, what would you have?
Here, take the hairs of my beard and go and pawn them."
The native received the hairs and borrowed money on them,
and the next pay-day the lender produced the hairs and
Albuquerque released them from pawn out of his own purse.
Albuquerque's sayings and his style of writing were
pithy and proverbial. His temper was quick, and sometimes
he regretted in his cooler moments the acts of his passion.
He was both sagacious and wily, and he was able to foil
Orientals with their own weapons. The value of downright
honesty in dealing with the Eastern peoples had not yet
been recognized, and Albuquerque's successors, imitating
his methods, but not possessing his ability, lost heavily in
the game of intrigue. He, too, had limitations which many
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 15 1 5 169
of them did not recognize, for though he certainly acted
on standards of truth and honesty which are not now
acknowledged, he saw clearly enough the value of both
these qualities, and in this very few of his successors
followed him. " I am known all over India," he tells the
the King, " as a man of my word; if I send for a Muhamedan
" from anywhere, he comes and demands no security. India,
"sire, in my time, is governed with truth and justice, though
'* it is true the people of these parts speak little truth to us,
" but we must not treat them in the same way." His appetite
for knowledge was insatiable ; besides the envoys to Con-
tinental Indian States he sent others to Siam, the Moluccas,
Pegu, Java, and Persia. In 15 13, after his return from the
Red Sea, he sent to the King an Aden Muhamedan who
could make opium: "It is only the juice of the poppy," he
tells the King, "and the poppies can be grown in the Azores
and Portugal." ' He was a man with the true imperial
instinct — the personality the Oriental follows blindly; clear
headed, always accessible, he did his work himself: he
might inadvertently be unjust, but he never allowed
subordinates to rob or oppress; he knew his own mind
and he never let his judgment be warped by fear or favour.
It remains to give a brief outline of Albuquerque's general
policy. It is the interesting point of his connection with
India, and to the English more than to any other nation,
that he, first of all men, grasped the idea that by the
maintenance of a preponderating sea power a country so
distant as Portugal could hope to found an Empire in the
East. His predecessor, Almeida, had of course recognized
the necessity of supremacy at sea, but his only aim was
to divert the carrying trade of the East and West into
Portuguese hands. In the absence of any authentic utterance
1 Cartas, page 174.
170 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
it is impossible to be exactly sure of Almeida's views; we
can only argue on the pale reflection in the minds of writers
not his contemporaries. He is said, for instance, to have
strongly opposed, not only any settlement in India, but also
the erection of any more fortresses. There is nothing,
however, to show how he proposed to keep up the effi-
ciency of the Indian fleet, and how the wastage of the crews
was to be made good. Assuming that he had arranged
for these two points, he was so far correct that experience
proved that the scattering of the Portuguese forces over
numerous fortresses was in later years a great source of
weakness. Almeida's views do not seem to have been
antagonistic to those of Albuquerque, but he grasped only
half a truth and entirely missed the great conception of
his successor.
To return then to the more immediate subject — Albu-
querque's own policy. He aimed at a Portuguese dominion
in the East, both by colonization and conquest, sufficiently
preponderating to give that nation the command of all the
trade between the East and West. He based his policy
entirely on physical force : the power of his own nation
must be incontestable as against both that of Muhamedans
and Hindus, and more especially as against that of the
former. He considered that alliances could not assist: if
the Portuguese could command obedience they were unne-
cessary; if they could not, there was neither truth nor
honour in the East to make the allies faithful. ' The little
band of invaders could only trust to their own right arms.
Such a policy as this required, then, the maintenance of
fortresses at certain strategical points which should be places
cT amies to shelter the soldiers and protect the ships while
refitting. In addition, however, there must be arrangements
1 There are passages that show that Albuc|uerf]iie saw that moral force bad
some value, hut he did not rank it high.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 15 15 171
to repair the terrible wastage of life, and arrangements for
the gigantic trade which Albuquerque's fertile brain foresaw.
To meet the wastage he proposed colonies ; and the trade
would need factories, not necessarily at the fortresses, but
where exigency required. He does not appear to have
remembered, or if he remembered, he considered it as of
minor importance, that in the East his ships could not keep
the sea during the south-western monsoon. For several
months of the year, then, the command of the sea must be
lost, not through any weakness of this fleet, but in the ordinary
course of nature. The fortresses rarely commanded on land
further than their own guns could carry, and the military
history of the Portuguese in India contains an undue pro-
portion of wasting defences of fortified places that drained
away men and material and left no profit behind.
To understand Albuquerque's proposals it is necessary
to remember that the pepper trade was a royal monopoly.
It was so jealously guarded that no authority in India could
enter into any agreement or make any peace that affected
it. ' It was the cause of most of the coast wars, for the
Muhamedans strove by every means to load cargoes of
pepper for the Red Sea, and there can be no doubt but
that not many years after the time of Albuquerque all
the Portuguese from the Governor downwards, traded
illicitly in pepper. The prices paid by the King were those
fixed when his ships first visited the coast, before competition
had raised them; naturally the King got the worst stuff
in the market ; some sent home by Diogo Lopes de Sequiera
was so bad that 33 years later it still lay in the Lisbon
warehouses. 3
1 Correa, IV. 104. The monopoly was abolished in 1570. Ar. Port. Or.,
Fasc. 5, No. 679.
2 See Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 30, of February 7th, 1520, for an order
that all captains who have pepper on board that they cannot account for
172 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
As Albuquerque considered that the commerce of India
could not be acquired by either peaceful methods or by
alliances, he proposed to have strong fortresses at Aden,
Diu, Ormuz and Goa, and factories with small forts at
Cochin, Cananor and Quilon. The position of his fortresses
showed the quarter (the north) from which he feared the
enemy would come ; still, if this enemy came in great force,
he considered that the Portuguese would never be strong
enough to engage him on sea and land at the same time,
and that, under such circumstances, the ships must be laid up,
the forts defended, and natural agencies be trusted to dis-
pose of the enemy's fleet: he had had experience of the
action of such destructive agencies in the Indian waters.
The condition of the Indian fleet did not satisfy him. " Our
" ships put to sea," he says, " with water, rice and a little fish :
'•they return to Cochin for the monsoon, where the crews
"have rice, fish and debauchery, and they die. When the
" Portuguese are colonized in India, not only will the minds
" of the Muhamedans be settled and they will no longer look
" on us as mere tramps, but the captains will have healthy
" men to hand, able to feed on the food of the country in
"which they were born; and for choice I would have Goa
" men — they eat wheaten bread and beef." In each fortress
there would be a garrison of 500 to 1,000 men; 300 men
for each factory and 1,600 for the fleet. Every captain
would arrange for his own garrison and not trust entirely
to Portugal. The headquarters of the government were
to be at Goa, and under the Governor there were to be
are to be sent to Portugal. No. 10 of March 15, 15 18, shows that 4 cwt.
was allowed unquestioned. Pero Nunes, when Comptroller of Revenue,
introduced great reforms. He purchased direct from the producer, and the loss
fell from 30 or 40 p.c. to 7 p.c. Castanheda, VI. 72. The account of
Albuquerque's policy is taken from his letters. It is difficult to give references:
the letters must be read as a whole to get the general drift. The more impor-
tant will be found at page 37 and following, and page 403 and following.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 1515 173
4 factors respectively of Ormuz, Guzerat, Cochin and
Malacca. " The volume of Indian trade is," he says, " enor-
"mous; silks, brocades, copper, mercury, coral etc. — it is
" beyond belief. When the mouth of the Red Sea is closed
" by Aden, all the north-going trade must go by Ormuz and
"and the Persian Gulf where the Portuguese are supreme."
The King had suggested that Hindu and native Christian
traders should be favoured at the expense of the Muhamedan,
but Albuquerque brushed this aside indignantly. " Neither
Hindus nor native Christians are capitalists," he says; "the
" Muhamedans alone are in a big way of business. All religions
" and races work together so much in India that you cannot
"separate them. Guzerat banias employ Muhamedan sailors."
These native traders then, with the non-official Portu-
guese, were to have all the local carrying trade in their
hands. The King of Portugal would be the only merchant
between India and Portugal, and he would sell goods
for distribution, and from the profits cargoes could be
bought for home-going ships. Portuguese ships would
only travel between Portugal and Cochin and back, and
Cochin would be the headquarters ; ships starting from
India could undertake the voyages to China and Bengal.
The only duty of the Cochin factor would be to receive
and send out goods to or from Europe or other factories.
The factor, the treasurer, the captain of the fortress and
the commissary would be the Council for the purchase and
sale of goods. The discipline of the fortress was to be
solely in the charge of the captain, and he would have
full power to conquer any territory from the Muhamedans
that came within the limits of his captaincy. The salaries
of the Indian establishment could, he thought, be met from
the so-called tributes paid by certain seaside states, the
price of safe-conducts sold to trading vessels, and the income
from the territory round Goa ; the two first heads were
174 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
blackmail pure and simple. There would be some income
also from custom-houses, but it is difficult to understand what
a great hamper to trade the custom-house of those days
was. Officials were continually adding some new exaction
which in time became incorporated in the demand. Take
Indian cloth at Ormuz as one example not differing from
many others. The original duty was ten per cent, ad
valorem; in time there was added to this, one per cent,
for the officials, and 6d a bale also for the officials. When
these extra items became recognized, importers had still to
find favour by giving something over and above the demand,
and in this way the duty gradually increased until it became
prohibitive.
In Albuquerque's opinion officials should be appointed
for 8 and not for 3 years: he was certainly right. The
shorter term was barely long enough for a hungry man to
fill his purse and leave all as clean swept for his successor
as his predecessor had left it for him ; while with the longer
term there might conceivably have been some rest, and
possibly the growth of a higher standard might have been
promoted. Albuquerque is very definite as to the stamp of
man sent out. "They are ready," he says, " with their paltry
"cargo of pepper when the ships come in, but with the
" riches of India before you it is nonsense to talk of pepper.
" These Government officials never search for other profitable
"merchandize, nor have they even the training to buy in
" the cheapest market, they are not fit to purchase twopen-
" nyworth of bread in the bazaar. A clerk trained in the
"counting-house of Bartholomew, the Florentine, would be
"more useful than all the factors the king has in India."
Such then was the plan, in some respects crude and
immature, which Albuquerque wrote in confidence to his
friend Duarte Galvao. Had he merely dangled it before
the eyes of the King it might have been doubtful how
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, 1509— 1515 175
far it represented his real aim, for in many of his letters
we trace a habit of writing for the effect of the moment.
Deficient as the plan is, it is interesting as it shows that
Albuquerque was no mere vulgar conqueror consumed with
earth hunger and the desire of personal aggrandizement;
he could look forward beyond the present to a time of
peace and commerce. ' He aimed, then, at extending his
country's power, but he also saw that his country's true
interest lay in peace. It was sometimes difficult even for
him to resist the reiterated commands of the King of
Portugal to destroy Muhamedans everywhere. He carried
the peace with the Samuri in the teeth of an opposition
that few would have encountered.
With the instruments at their command, generations of
Albuquerques in the Indian Government could not success-
fully have carried out the scheme he sketched, but on that
point he may well have overrated his own ability, or under-
rated the difficulty of dealing with his own countrymen.
The condition of affairs, however, in India was never such
that any commencement even of working out his idea could
be made ; that interpolation — strange indeed to us — that
every Captain should be at liberty to carry on private war
with the Muhamedans would of itself have been sufficient
to prevent the realization of the rest. It is difficult to believe
that Albuquerque had not grasped the fact, though certainly
his countrymen never grasped it, that the Indian Muham-
edan had as clear an idea of his own rights as the Por-
tuguese had of theirs, and was as ready when an opportu-
nity offered to defend those rights. It seems more probable
that this proposal was thrown in to make the rest more
palatable.
The Portuguese government in India was never properly
1 In this he stands alone amongst, at all events, early Portuguese governors
in India.
176 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
solvent. Taking the first 50 years we have seen the difficulty
Albuquerque had; Nuno da Cunha paid his way by the
prizes captured in the Red Sea ; Estavao da Gama expended
his private fortune; of Martim Afonso de Sousa it will be
sufficient to speak when the time comes ; the other governors
were always impecunious. The search for prizes, by which
alone their budgets could be squared, kept the Portuguese
in perpetual quarrels.
The colonies by which Albuquerque proposed to man
his ships were to be formed by marriages between the Por-
tuguese and the women of the country. At that time the
Portuguese race, even in its home, was rapidly becoming
mixed; with the Africans brought home as specimens by
the early explorers, with those brought as slaves by the
later, and with the inhabitants of the African islands the
Portuguese had formed connections which introduced alien
strains of blood. The idea therefore of half-caste colonies '
was not as unfamiliar to that nation as it would have been
to some others. Albuquerque began his experiment with
the banished men, and this gave point to the sneer of the
captains, that from a banished criminal and a low-caste
woman nothing good could come. Albuquerque certainly
felt the objection to low-caste women, for he tells the King
he was careful to select the captive Muhamedan and
Brahmin women as being of better breeding; : no one indeed
was allowed to retain a woman of either of these classes
as a slave except on the understanding that she was to be
given up to anyone who desired to marry her. A large
influx of women, however, came in with the Socotra garri-
1 Barros was perhaps referring to fidalgoes when speaking of Gongalo
Vaz de Mello in II. I, 3. He says he was rather looked down on for being
"pardo nas cores." See Barros, II. 5, II, for the general feeling as to these
marriages.
2 Cartas, page 338.
ALBUQUERQUE, GOVERNOR, I 509— 1515 177
son when that island was abandoned in 15 n, and many
of them who were of a low class enough were married in
Goa. ' In every Portuguese settlement the married men
rapidly became a caste to themselves with special privi-
leges ; all petty offices were reserved lor them, and in Goa
all the lands belonging to the King — a very large part of
the area — were divided among them. ' It has already been
shown that the city of Goa was in considerable danger
from the conspiracy formed through the instrumentality of
these women. Of course, as their connection with their blood
relations grew more distant the danger of a conspiracy of
this nature lessened, though there was one of a similar
character in Diu in 1546. The women were nominally, at
least, Christians, but their status was little better than that
of slaves. The Portuguese lost in vigour from associating
with an alien race, and symptoms of decay set in quickly.
Albuquerque encouraged the married men to start shops
as bakers, shoemakers, tavern keepers, carpenters and tailors ;
but the climate and surroundings were too powerful, the
work was done by slaves, and the master subsisted in sloth
on their earnings. To such a pitch did this come that it
was stated, and not denied, that the wives were not ashamed
to profit by the earnings of their better-looking slave girls,
and the husbands by those of the pirates of Sangameshwar,
recruited from their slaves, who preyed on the Portuguese
trade. These grave evils showed themselves in a later
generation ; but if Correa is correct, and he was in a posi-
tion to know, Albuquerque foresaw to some extent what
might happen. s He was disappointed to find that men
married women for their money without caring how that
1 Correa, II. 177.
2 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 9. Later on great difficulty was experienced
when the rights of the married men of Cochin were infringed.
3 Correa, II. 375.
12
178 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
money had been acquired. He feared for the children of
such mothers, brought up in the atmosphere of a home
filled with slaves, and suggested that the King should order
that all children were, between the ages of 12 and 25, to
be educated in Portugal ; no letter to this effect appears
to be extant, but if he did suggest it, it is merely another
instance of his foresight. This mixed breed, the result of
these unions, never invigorated by contact with the sterner
race, some of whose blood was in its veins, approximated
more and more to the type of the country where it origin-
ated. That it should have been unable to hold its own with
hardier races is quite consonant with experience. l
1 Nothing has been said of the minute care Albuquerque's letters evince
in all matters bearing on trade. It would be wearisome to recount the ample
evidence the letters contain of this. See, for instance, page 166 for the proper
packing of goods; page 349 for the waste of wine on board ship ; pp. 267, 272,
329 for bad trading; page 199 for Goa horses etc.
CHAPTER IX
Lopo Scares, Governor, 1515-1518-D10G0 Lopes de
Sequiera, Governor, 1518-1521
Lopo Soares.-The Governor sent by the King of Por-
tugal to supersede Albuquerque was in every way his con-
trast. Lopo Soares had been, in 1504, the admiral of the
annual fleet; he then reached India after the brilliant de-
fence of Cochin by Duarte Pacheco, and assisted by the
prestige due to that exploit, he had loaded his ships with
a rich cargo. His personal courage was unquestionable,
for he had, on December 31st, 1504, led the gallant attack
on the Muhamedan vessels at Pandarani Kollam; unfortun-
ately he had none of the qualities necessary to make a
good governor. His staid and solemn deportment alienated
those accustomed to Albuquerque's more genial manner,
and his relations with the ruling chiefs, who did not con-
ceal their distaste at the change, were not happy. It took
12 days of solemn trifling to arrange the exact ceremonial
of a meeting with the Samuri-Albuquerque would have
settled it with a stamp of his foot.
He was weak enough to endeavour to justify his own
selection as governor by interfering in every arrangement
of his great predecessor; he could only find the Orphans'
Fund to meddle with, and that he wound up, says Correa,
who hated him. ■ His own actions as governor were such
tc/theT car"d W ° "f" '""^J™* P«* ^-the instance referring
the A carved m stone on the Ormuz fortress does not appear to have
180 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
that they threw into relief the qualities of him whom he
succeeded; he was weak, vain and wanting in nerve, and
his solitary success consisted in building a fort among the
unwarlike Singhalese. In the Red Sea and at Aden his
failure was so conspicuous that it became a by-word among
both Muhamedans and Portuguese alike. His internal poli-
cy was equally disastrous and resulted in the dissolution
of that discipline which Albuquerque had so carefully fos-
tered. One of Albuquerque's most stringent rules was
that no Portuguese should engage in trade : Soares at once
gave permission to all to do as they pleased, and the
Eastern Seas were crowded with so-called traders who were
but pirates under another name. No ship was safe from
the cupidity of these vermin, it did not matter whether
she were friend or foe, whether she had a Portuguese safe-
conduct or not; if the Portuguese were the stronger, she
had to yield her cargo to the spoiler and her crew to the
slavery of the oar and the pump. Another result followed :
as all Muhamedan ships carried pepper and spices, they
began to be built larger and armed more heavily than be-
fore, and could often hold their own against their enemies.
As every Portuguese, even if a peaceable trader, was thus
brought into contact with interests that clashed with his
own, collisions with natives of the country became more
frequent, and as Soares showed little disposition to back
his own men at all hazards, his influence over them de-
creased as much as the prestige of the Portuguese nation
diminished.
Lopo Soares left Europe on April 7th, 1515, with 15
come under Coirea's personal notice (II. 506). The other, which was even
stranger as it referred to Albuquerque's tomb, of which Correa as employed
in the Goa public works was in charge, and which, together with the Chapel
of St. Catherine, Soares wished to destroy, will be found Vol. II. p. 472.
Correa attributes the order about the tomb to the jealousy of Soares that
people should go there to offer up petitions to the dead man.
LOPO SOARES, GOVERNOR, 1 515— 1 518 181
ships, 1,500 men at arms, and new captains for all the for-
tresses ; he also carried back Matheus, the envoy sent from
Abyssinia to Portugal, and a Portuguese return embassy
headed by Duarte Galvao, an old man of 70, who had
made himself an honoured name in the history of his
country. The presents carried by the ambassador were
estimated as worth £15,000, but Galvao died of vexation
and hardships in the Red Sea ; Matheus was not landed in
Abyssinia until many years later — history is silent as to
the fate of the presents. When Soares reached Goa on
September 8th, Albuquerque was still in Ormuz; but
without waiting for his return he interfered in every detail
of the administration. The trained bands were dismissed,
as he considered drill in India oppressive ; the horses in
the stables, and the elephants that had been captured were
sold off. After Albuquerque's death even his private pro-
perty was dispersed by auction, but the sale redounded to
the credit of the great governor rather than to that of his
successor, for the animus was evident, but the goods were
of little value. Disgusted with what had happened, and
perhaps foreseeing the future, Albuquerque's captains, the
"flower of India", left in the fleet with Garcia de Noronha.
The Governor's troubles began early. At one petty town
24 Portuguese from the ships of Simao d'Andrade, who
had distinguished himself by his extravagant expressions
of joy at the death of Albuquerque, ! were killed in a riot
by the Muhamedans. The latter were apparently trying
the temper of the new Governor, and at least they quickly
found his measure; for at his visit soon after, he extracted
no reparation, and when the chief of the town sent him
three decrepit old men as guilty of the massacre — an
act that savoured strongly of sarcasm — Soares politely
1 He had sailed into. Cochin harbour with his ship decked with flags when
he was the bearer of the news of Albuquerque"s death.
1 82 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
returned them. At Ormuz there was a quarrel between
two Portuguese, one of whom took refuge with D. Aleixo
de Menezes, the Governor's nephew ; although his opponent
cut him down at D. Aleixo's own table he was never
brought to trial. Curiously enough the first shooting dispute
on record took place at this time, when, in the rains of
1 516, one Gaspar da Silva started off in a boat with some
friends for a shooting picnic on the mainland behind Cochin.
The natives begged him not to shoot peafowl, but he
persisted, and when a wounded bird fell close to a chiefs
house the infuriated people drove the Portuguese to their
boats, with the loss of four of their number killed.
In January 15 16 a speedy vessel from Portugal brought
definite news that the Egyptians were preparing a fleet in
the Red Sea, to revenge the defeat at Diu in 1509, and
the rest of the year was spent by the Governor in getting
ready to go in search of the enemy. In all, 37 vessels were
collected; they carried 1,800 men at arms attended by 2,000
fighting slaves, and there were 600 Portuguese seamen assisted
by 1,000 others from the Indian coast, in addition to slaves
for the oars and pumps. A start was made in February
1 5 17: Socotra was reached on the 28th, from there the
ships stretched over to Aden. The Governor of Aden, Mir
Amrjan, had but just repulsed a vigorous attack of the
Egyptian fleet; as his walls were breached and his garrison
entirely unable to meet a fresh foe, he sent the keys of
the town to Lopo Soares in token of submission to the
King of Portugal. This, almost the only chance the Portu-
guese ever had of getting possession of Aden, was rejected
by the Governor without even a Council. His argument
was, shortly, that the orders of the King were to find out
and fight the Egyptian fleet; that to take possession of
the town would only weaken and divide his force, and that
on his return he could easily get the place. He apparently
LOPO SO ARES, GOVERNOR, 1 5 1 5— I 5 1 8 183
did not remember that the defeat suffered by the Egyptian
fleet before Aden had by so much lessened their power
whether for offence or defence. Another act of blind obedience
to the letter of orders written many thousand miles away
in complete ignorance of the facts, brought, later on, ruin
to the expedition.
The history of the Egyptian fleet that had been defeated
before Aden, the news of which had caused such prepara-
tions in India, must be briefly traced. After his defeat at
Diu in 1509, Mir Hashim escaped to Jedda, and, finding
nothing else to do, spent his energies in fortifying that
town. By wood and by boat-builders brought across Egypt
to Suez, a new fleet was got together by the last of the
independent Mameluke Sultans, but when it was ready the
command was given, not to Mir Hashim, but to one Sulaiman
who had taken an opportunity to visit India and personally
inspect the Portuguese fleet. Sulaiman was a Turk of
Mitylene, a ship's carpenter by birth, who had acquired
reputation as a corsair in the Mediterranean. In this fleet
sailed one with whom the Portuguese had afterwards, when
he was employed by the Sultan of Guzerat, considerable
dealings. This man was, on account of his small size, known
as Sifr Agha (the Cypher), he was a native of Brindisi,
the son of an Albanian by an Italian woman. ' Sulaiman
left Suez early in October 1515, with 27 ships and 6,000
men, — Mamelukes, Arabians and renegades. He reached
Jedda on November 4th, and left on the 19th for Kamaran,
where he spent eight months in building a fort to prevent
a landing by the Portuguese, and then even left in unfinished.
He next attacked Aden, using as a pretext some discourtesy
to Mir Hashim when a fugitive from Diu, but, defeated
1 According to Elliot, History of India, V. p. 347, he received the title of
Khudawand Khan while in India, and in Bayley's "Guzerat", p. 438, he is
mentioned by this name with the addition of Rumi.
i8 4 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
there, he returned to Jedda, where he fell out with Mir
Hashim. Mir Hashim, worsted in the game of intrigue, was
taken prisoner and sent to sea, where he died either naturally
or by violence. When the news of the defeat of the Mame-
luke Sultan and the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman
Turk reached Jedda, Sulaiman sent the greater part of his
fleet to Suez and only retained a few galleys.
This was the condition of affairs when Soares entered
the Red Sea ; with that entry his troubles began. He passed
through the straits by night, with little precaution, and in a
storm of no unusual violence two of his ships were lost
and two were permanently separated from the fleet; in
these ships was a large portion of his munitions and pro-
visions, and in one of the wrecks was lost Jorge Galvao,
the son of Duarte Galvao, the first of the many brothers
who died in the East. The rest of the expedition made its
way to Jedda, and off that town picked up a boat with
eighteen escaped Christian slaves, chiefly Venetians, who
had been captured at Alexandria by the simple expedient
of raiding the vessels of that nationality trading there.
From these Soares learnt that the town was demoralized.
When he reached Jedda, however, the forces there made a
considerable display; projectiles weighing over 70 pounds
fired at the vessels gave the power of the artillery, and a
survey of the mouth of the harbour showed that the only
entrance was by a narrow and tortuous waterway, commanded
at every point by cannon, — unless these were spiked any
attack was out of the question. Soares remained off the
entrance in inglorious inaction for n days, and then, amid
the execrations of the old fighting men of his force, sailed
away. The letter of the King's orders was again quoted :
they were to fight the Egyptians at sea, and this did not
include fighting them on land. The capture of the city
would cost more lives than it was worth, and as the
LOPO SOARES, GOVERNOR, 15 1 5—1 518 185
enemy's fleet had dispersed, all danger to India was at an
end. Soares was soon to learn that the summer months in
the Red Sea were more deadly to troops without shelter
or supplies than an attack on a strongly defended town.
Owing to calms and contrary winds the return to Kamaran
took several days ; water failed in some ships, in all it was
deficient, and many died of mere thirst. When Kamaran
was reached the danger of death from thirst had passed,
but the danger of death from famine grew more acute, for
the stores in the ships could only supply the men with a
little cooked rice once a day ; naturally, when called on to
work in the heat of the summer sun at demolishing the
partly built fort, the men died fast. A bold attack on
Jedda would have given ample supplies ; now vessels sent
in all directions failed to collect anything from those arid
shores, and several lives were lost in vain skirmishes.
One of the first and certainly the most illustrious of the
victims was Duarte Galvao, who died on June 9th; his
grave was marked by Francisco Alvarez, the priest who
was with him at the end, and who, ten years later, at the
close of that Abyssinian journey of which he has left us
such a valuable account, reverently disinterred the bones
of his old master and carried them to Portugal. Soares fell
out with Matheus, the Abyssinian envoy ; in spite of his
orders he affected to doubt that he was a genuine Abys-
sinian and declined to land him at Massowah. In the
miserable three months at Kamaran the expedition lost 800
Europeans and nearly all the slaves; the living were so
enfeebled they could not bury the dead; in July the
demoralized fleet put to sea and made for the straits. In
one ship only 25 were left alive out of 130 — two of the
survivors murdered their captain, a nephew of the Governor,
but the rest were too apathetic from their sufferings to
take much notice even of such a crime.
i86 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
About half the fleet stayed with Soares, and to get food
attacked Zeila, but even over the arrangement of this attack
the Governor and his captains squabbled. Soares fired the
place and burned in it provisions that the fleet soon wanted
sorely. At Aden the walls had been repaired, and Soares met
with a very different reception from that of a few months
before; there was no talk now of surrendering the fortress, but
as a great favour he was allowed to buy some water and some
provisions that did not, however, supply the daily consumption
of his halt. Rebuffed here, he started to sack Berbera, but
the wind was contrary, and losing patience and giving no fresh
orders Soares bore up for Ormuz, leaving the other ships to
follow if they pleased. But that some unexpectedly found
water on the Arabian coast, few would have survived to tell
the tale. Ormuz was reached about the middle of Septem-
ber, and when the season arrived Soares returned to India.
During his absence Goa had been involved in consider-
able difficulties owing to the action of the captain, a
Spaniard named D. Goterre de Monroy, who had married
the Governor's niece and who had been appointed deputy
during his absence. The captain had been free in granting
passes, and encouraged by the prevailing laxity, one Jeronimo
de Sousa ' started off to the African coast with a Government
vessel to do some buccaneering. When the news of this
reached Goa, another expedition, under the captain's brother,
was sent to arrest him, but he went to the Maldives and
began piracy on his own account.
The captain, however, was involved in most difficulty in
his affairs on land. One Fernao Caldeira had been a page
of Albuquerque's and had, owing to complaints against him,
been sent a prisoner to Portugal ; ' he returned, like many
1 Jeronimo de Sousa had no difficulty in getting a pardon afterward-.
2 He is mentionel in the account of the old scandal whose dry hones
still rattle in the pages of Castanheda. III. 1 23 — 125.
LOPO SOARES, GOVERNOR, 1515 — 15 18 187
others of Albuquerque's enemies, with Soares. He came
out in Monroy's ship, and on the way quarrelled with his
captain. Knowing the latter's revengeful temper, he left
the vessel when the chance offered, and did not return to
his wife and children in Goa, but lived at Ponda in the
Adil Shah's territory, under the protection of the captain
of the castle, Ankas Khan. Monroy could not rest without
revenge, and sent his man ' Joao Gomes to worm himself
into Caldeira's confidence and murder him. Gomes killed
Caldeira, but Ankas Khan pursued him, cut off his head,
tied it to the tail of his own horse and whipped the latter
over the water into Goa territory, to carry its own message.
Communication with the mainland was interrupted, and Goa
suffered from a failure of its supplies.
Goterre de Monroy awaited the rainy season to take
his revenge on Ankas Khan. Joao Machado, the banished
man, had been appointed by the king thanadar of the
island of Goa. s As such his duties were to arrange for
the cultivation of the island and collect dues from the
cultivators, and to keep a roll-call of them and their payments
in duplicate ; but neither the organization of raids nor the
carrying on of warlike operations was part of his business.
Machado, however, was too old a free lance to be troubled
by any scruple, and he agreed to make a night raid on
June 1st and seize Ankas Khan. The captain's brother,
Fernando de Monroy, who had returned from the Maldives
with his booty, was in command of the 60 horse, Machado
led the foot. The raid was a ludicrous failure. The force
stayed squabbling so long outside Ponda that their approach
1 " Cousa sua " of Correa.
2 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. I, dated February 4th, 15 15, contains the
order of his appointment. For the duties of a thanadar — who was not the
official now known by that name — see Ar, Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No 19 of
March 30th, 15 19.
i88 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
was discovered : the Muhamedans bolted, and then the two
bodies into which the Portuguese had divided, ran from
each other. The Muhamedans recovered from their panic
first, pursued the Portuguese and killed some fifty of them,
including Joao Machado; of the country troops that went
with them, about ioo were killed, and all the party threw away
its arms. The whole frontier was of course at once in a blaze,
and Goa a beleaguered city until the ships of the year arrived
in September. Goterre de Monroy, who was responsible for
the troubles, made an excellent defence against the army of
the Adil Shah that had been sent to support his lieutenant.
In the fleet of 15 17 came a new official, Fernao Alcagova,
the Comptroller of Revenue, whose powers were very
extensive in all matters of revenue. The intention of the
King of Portugal was obvious : he considered that the time
had come when the work in India should be devolved on
two separate establishments. We are so accustomed to
see the command of the Army separated from the management
of the revenue, that it is not easy for us to understand
the anger that this change created in India. ' To the
Comptroller were made over by the King's orders all the
factors and writers in the settlements ; no captain of a
fortress could spend any money, and any factor who made
a payment on the order of a captain was held personally
responsible. s Had Soares been loyal the change, great as
it was, could have been introduced, but he was not; outwardly
he professed entire obedience to the King's orders —
privately he directed the officials to obstruct the new
Comptroller. Alcagova found his position untenable, and
went back to Portugal in the return voyage of the ships
in which he had come out.
1 See Cartas, \>. 19. Albuquerque originally suggested the appointment of
a Comptroller.
2 -For Alcacova's instructions see Ar. Port Or., Fasc. 5, Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5.
DIOGO LOPES DE SEQUIERA, GOVERNOR, 1 5 1 8- 1 5 2 1 189
As only a year of his term remained, Soares devoted his
energies to preparing an expedition to Ceylon. The rains
of 1 518 were spent in Cochin, where his judgment and
discretion in dealing with the brawls that came before him
in no way belied his former reputation. ' In the middle
of September the expedition started, and, after a fight with
the local forces, a fort was built on a point of land at
Colombo. This fort was at the best but a flimsy structure,
and about 1520 the Captain rebuilt a great part of it with
stone and lime.
Soares left India unregretted ; he was famed for his sudden
outbursts of passion, partly due perhaps to gout, and after
his failure in the Red Sea all respect for him vanished.
He was dry in speech, pompous in manner, and his justice
was never tempered with mercy. He had no intimates;
presents from foreign ambassadors he tolerated as the
custom of the country, but no one dared to offer him a
personal gift, or even a banquet ; no one could sit or even
cover his head in a house where he was, without special
permission — rarely given. It was his rule that the Governor
must be excelled by no one in matters of food and drink,
and he had the best arranged table that had been seen in
India. He ate at one table with those of sufficient rank
to enjoy the honour ; the two other tables were presided
over by his steward and the captain of his guard. On his
return to Portugal he was coldly received at Court, and
retired to his private estate at Torres Vedras, where he
lived with his daughter, refusing to leave it even to reply
to the accusations of Fernao d'Alcacova.
Diogo Lopes de Sequiera. — Diogo Lopes de Sequiera,
who succeeded Lopo Soares, had, in 1508, been sent to
1 See Castanheda, IV. 33, for a story of his injudicious treatment of a
private quarrel.
igo THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
discover Malacca: his failure there was notorious, and in
that voyage he so seriously disobliged Albuquerque that
he did not even dare to visit Cochin to supply his neces-
sities on the return from the further East. He left Portugal
on March 27th, 15 18, and reached Goa on September 8th. '
From there he pushed on to Cochin in the hope of intercepting
Lopo Soares before he started for Ceylon; his messenger
indeed reached Cochin a few hours after Soares started,
and there is no doubt but that the latter knew of the
arrival of his successor and eluded him in order to score
one success before his departure. Soares gave over charge
and left India on January 20th. The orders of Diogo
Lopes included building a fort in Diu ; the exploration of
Massowah, and the landing there of Matheus, the Abyssinian
envoy, and of D. Rodrigo de Lima, the Portuguese Ambas-
sador; and the erecting new forts in the Maldives, Sumatra,
the Moluccas and Chaul.
By the end of the rains of 15 19 the preparations for
the Red Sea expedition were far advanced, and, as the
ships of the year had not arrived, orders were sent to
Mozambique to direct the vessels to proceed straight to
Ormuz. On February 15th, 1520, Diogo Lopes started for
the Red Sea with 24 sail, carrying 1,800 Europeans and
800 fighting slaves. His flag-ship was wrecked between
Aden and Babel Mandeb, and the Governor and the crew
escaped with little more than their lives. The fleet worked
part of the way up to Jedda, but the winds were contrary,
and as soon as it was ascertained that there was neither
an Egyptian nor a Turkish fleet in the Red Sea, a course
was steered for Massowah. Matheus, who was found to be,
after all the discussion, a genuine envoy, was landed, and
1 The only recorded event of the voyage was the attack of a sword-fish
on the ship of D. Joao de Lima. See Barros, III. 3, I, for a long dissertation
on this then almost unknown fish.
DIOGO LOPES DE SEQUIERA, GOVERNOR, I 5 1 8- 1 5 2 1 191
the Portuguese ambassador with his suite started inland
on April 20th. ' The first meeting with the Abyssinians
was a cruel disenchantment for the Portuguese. For many
years they had eagerly looked forward to opening a
communication with a mighty emperor of their own faith,
who would assist them against their hereditary foe, the
Muhamedan. Where all was unknown the imagination had
filled in the details as fancy dictated. a
His business concluded at Massowah, Diogo Lopes hurried
from the Red Sea lest the fate of the fleets of Albuquerque
and Lopo Soares should overtake him. At Ormuz he met
the Portuguese fleet of 1519, under the command of Jorge
d'Albuquerque, who had been Captain of Malacca and who
was returning to the same appointment. '
The island of Diu, which for many years occupied an
important place in Indo-Portuguese politics, was not a mart
whence the merchandize for Europe could be shipped ; its
importance in Portuguese eyes was that it was a stronghold
where, as long as it continued in Muhamedan hands, the
Turks could always find a refuge. The stamped cloths of
Guzerat, however, off whose coast the island lies, had an
extensive sale all over the East, and when, a few years
later, there was war over the Portuguese demand for the
cession of Diu, the latter people felt severely the stoppage
of the supply of these cloths, which were used as currency
in many places beyond Malacca. Diogo Lopes visited Diu
on his way from Ormuz to India, and there can be no
1 Alvarez has left an account of the doings of this embassy, which has
been published by the Hakluyt Society — "A book rather virtuous than
learned, composed carefully as far as his wit allowed," sneers Barros,
HI. 4, 3-
2 The note of disappointment appears in Correa's description of the
people (not, of course, Abyssinians) who met Diogo Lopes at Massowah.
Correa, II. 584.
8 Dr. Pero Nunez, the new Comptroller of Revenue in the place of Alcagova,
came in this fleet and went direct to India.
i 9 2 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
doubt that he would then, if he could, have taken posses-
sion of the town ; but Malik Aiyaz, whether he was prepared
or not, showed a bold front. l The Portuguese council of
war would not fight, and Diogo Lopes, after tasting the
hospitality of Malik Aiyaz and listening to his protestations
of impotency as the mere slave of the Sultan of Guzerat,
sailed to Goa.
The talk of Diogo Lopes while at Diu had been indis-
creet, and Malik Aiyaz employed Sid Ali, the one-eyed
envoy 2 who had done him good service before, to follow
him to Goa. His reports revealed such danger that no
pains were spared to strengthen the fortifications of Diu
and replenish the magazines; the mouth of the harbour,
too, was guarded by a chain, and fresh guns were mounted.
When Diogo Lopes, therefore, arrived again before Diu on
February 9th, 1521, with 42 vessels carrying 2,000 Euro-
peans and 1,800 local troops, these preparations made
such an impression on his council of war that it again
refused to fight, and the Governor, after landing an envoy
for the Sultan of Guzerat, sailed on to Ormuz. There had
been a factor in Diu since the days of Albuquerque, and
to remove one difficulty, Fernandes de Beja, who had
been Albuquerque's flag-captain in the Red Sea, was left
to get him off. He was successful, but the evasion was
looked on as an act of hostility, and the Diu flotilla under
Agha Muhamad poured out of the harbour to attack the
Portuguese ships. The Portuguese found that they had
to deal with an enemy who could give shrewd blows,
whose artillery, although it was only of iron, was quickly
served, and whose powder was of surprising strength.
De Beja's vessels cut their cables and escaped as best
1 Barros says that he was not prepared, and that Diogo Lopes was deceived.
1 Albuquerque considered him "an evil man who knows Portugal well."
Cartas, p. 333.
DIOGO LOPES DE SEQUIERA, GOVERNOR, I 5 1 8- 1 5 2 1 193
they could; they reached Ormuz on May 25th — ten days
after the Governor.
The vast fleet that Diogo Lopes had collected was now
perforce dispersed to its different destinations. Jorge d' Albu-
querque sailed in command of the ships for the furthest
East ; under him were Antonio de Brito and Jorge de Brito,
who were to build a fort in the Moluccas, and Rafael
Coutinho bound for China. Of this fleet it was said that
of the 1,000 souls on board not 100 ever returned to
India. ' The King of Ormuz, when pressed for his tribute,
pleaded his long-standing quarrel with Mukarram, the ruler
of El Hasa, on the Arabian coast, over the ownership of
Bahrein, which was valuable for its pearl fishery. Mukarram
had agreed to pay tribute for the island, but no instalment
could be recovered without an armed expedition, and as
one of these was just starting, Diogo Lopes agreed to assist
by sending his nephew, Antonio Correa, with 400 Portu-
guese. Antonio and his brother Aires had, when boys, been
saved from the Calicut massacre in 1500, when their father
was killed; and Antonio had already given proof of his
courage and ability in Malacca. The force started on June
15th, but the ships did not keep together, and Antonio
reached the Island of Bahrein with only 250 Portuguese
in company. The heat was terrific, and although the
opposing force far outnumbered his own, Correa determined
to attack. His boldness met with its due reward ; Mukarram
was killed and his army defeated. The dashing exploit was
rewarded with a bi-lingual inscription in Ormuz, erected by
the governor, and an augmentation of Correa's arms granted
by the King of Portugal.
On August 20th Diogo Lopes despatched Fernandes de
Beja with four ships to cruise off the Guzerat coast and
1 Barros, III. 4. 10.
13
i 9 4 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
blockade Diu. While one of them was plundering a Red
Sea ship off Diu it fell calm. Agha Muhamad's flotilla of
light boats was on the alert, dashed out, saved the captured
ship, and with the fire of its heavy guns, sank the Portu-
guese ship, 25 of whose crew were taken prisoners. Before
the breeze sprang up the other three vessels were separately
attacked; all were roughly handled, and De Beja's own was
only saved from sinking by a piece of leather nailed over
a shot hole between wind and water. When there was
wind enough the battered ships made the best of their way
to the opposite coast to refit. Hurrying back to warn
Diogo Lopes, De Beja found him off Diu with his fleet
weakened by disaster.
As soon as his arrangements at Ormuz permitted, Diogo
Lopes had followed De Beja with the rest of the fleet ; his
latest plan — for he frequently changed — was to plant a fort
at Muzafarabad, 20 miles from Diu, and thence harry the
coast. As he discussed his plans and intentions openly,
there were spies enough round him to carry the information
to Malik Aiyaz. Among his ships was one commanded
by Aires Correa, which carried most of the stores needed
for the expedition. Some recently captured Muhamedans,
who preferred death to slavery, set her on fire, the magazine
caught and all on board perished. The coast of Guzerat
was on the alert and more strongly fortified than ever, and
Diogo Lopes again gave up all attempt at building a fortress,
not only in Diu, but also in Muzafarabad.
After his first failure at Diu, Diogo Lopes had turned his
thoughts to Chaul, which Albuquerque had suggested as
the right place for a fort. Chaul has now sunk into in-
significance, but for some centuries it was an important
place of trade. One of the Governor's earliest acts had
been to send Christovao de Sousa to the town, but, although
supported by a large body of matchlockmen, he was thrashed
DIOGO LOPES DE SEQUIERA, GOVERNOR, I 5 1 8- 1 5 2 I 195
out of the place by the townsmen with bows and arrows.
It belonged to Burhan Nizam Shah, and to him Diogo
Lopes sent an envoy, Fernao Coelho, and obtained the
necessary permission to erect. a fort. After his last failure
at Diu, Diogo Lopes went on to Chaul to take advantage
of the grant, J he was, however, closely followed by Agha
Muhamad and his flotilla sent to impede his design. Agha
Muhamad's appearance off the harbour caused a panic
among the Portuguese, and it was with difficulty that
the Governor, who was unpopular because he was unsuc-
cessful, and whose term of office was on the point of
expiring, could induce some ships to accompany him over
the bar. The eagerness of the captains was not increased
when they saw one of their own ships, commanded by Pero
da Silva, which was returning from Ormuz and running in
before the sea breeze, sunk before their eyes with all on
board, and they in shore impotent to help. Desultory
fighting continued for nearly a month ; the Portuguese sank
a few of the enemy, but in their turn they were badly
mauled by their nimble antagonists ; at the end of that time
the supply of powder ran short and they were reduced to
the defensive. When Diogo Lopes heard of the arrival of
his successor he prepared to return to Cochin, and made
De Beja commander of the sea forces ; but before he could
leave, De Beja himself was killed, and his ship only saved
from capture by the confusion caused among its assailants
by Agha Muhamad accidentally falling overboard. De
Beja was succeeded by Antonio Correa, and on December
27th Diogo Lopes proceeded south. Correa had to defend
himself both by sea and land, and was only saved from
serious disaster by the gallantry of the garrison, less than
30 in number, of an isolated battery who held their ground
1 The fort was also known as Rewandanda. Chaul was the more usual name.
i g6 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
after their commander and gunner were killed, until rein-
forcements could arrive. Correa was relieved in time to
accompany Diogo Lopes to Europe. They sailed on January
22nd, 1522. During his term as Governor, Diogo Lopes
had amassed considerable wealth and, if scandal speaks
truly, not always by the most honest means ; one particu-
larly black act stands on record, the more important for
its after effects. Kuti Ali was a wealthy Muhamedan of
Tanur who imitated European ways, furnished his house
with chairs and tables, and gave banquets to the Portu-
guese; he entered into partnership with Diogo Lopes — the
Governor, and another Portuguese, to run a cargo of pepper
to the Red Sea. When it was loaded Diogo Lopes con-
fiscated the whole as contraband and appropriated even the
vessel. From this date Kuti Ali became a corsair, and
joined Ali Ibrahim, that other victim of Portuguese injustice,
in harrying the trade of the Malabar coast. Diogo Lopes
had to disgorge in Portugal a part of his ill-gotten gains
to silence the underlings of a venal court, by these means
he retained the remainder. He never succeeded in anything
he undertook, — always excepting the amassing of wealth.
As an official Diogo Lopes was a man of some energy.
There are extant several of his orders affecting Goa, and
these may be considered with the orders of the King of
Portugal, granting privileges to the citizens and conferring
municipal rights on the city. The grant of land to the
residents of Goa who by their marriage were considered
to have done the King good service, is dated March 13th,
1 5 18. ' Under it all the royal properties in Goa, consisting
of cultivated lands and palm groves, chiefly the property
of Muhamedans who had absconded, were conveyed abso-
lutely to the married residents, — two-thirds to be divided
1 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 9.
DIOGO LOPES DE SEQUIERA, GOVERNOR, 1 5 1 8- 1 5 2 1 i 97
among those married and settled at the time of the grant,
one-third to be divided among men who should settle
after the grant was made. Three classes of the community
were formed— fidalgoes who took three shares, cavaliers
and esquires two shares, and common persons one share.
Pending the division of the reserved one-third, its income
was to be expended on beautifying the city; the grantees
had no powers of alienation. Almost all municipal offices
were reserved for the married men, and all food-stuffs for
the city were freed from taxation. ' The rule as to
presents was very similar to that now in force in British
India. 2 The Goa municipality was founded on the lines of
that of Lisbon, so much so indeed that the officials in Portugal
did not take the trouble to grant a separate charter to
Goa, but sent a copy of the Lisbon one ; the aldermen
were elected annually by votes, and provision was made
that certain mechanical trades should be represented. The
Goa municipality used to receive at intervals letters of
goodwill from the King of Portugal,— it also showed a
patriotic self-sacrifice at certain important crises in the
the history of Portuguese India, and the Governors never
appealed to it in vain for pecuniary assistance; some of
its petitions to the king are valuable as an exposure of the
more crying evils under which the residents suffered, but
the municipal body was an exotic, and in time even the
right to elect to petty offices in their gift, though it
remained theoretically in their hands, was always exercised
1 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 2, Nos. 2 to 9 and Nos. 1 1 to 14 contain differentprivileges
of Goa and its citizens. In Fasc. 5, No. 10, are many interesting provisions
as to the fees to be levied at the fords into Goa, and as to the arrangements
for paying men their salaries etc. Fifty government horses were to be kept
for defence, and every resident who kept one was to be paid 2 pardaos a
month, that is about 16 shillings Of late years the cost of keeping a horse
was estimated at 16 rupees, it is probably more now.
- Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 24, Nov. 20th, 15 19.
i 9 8 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
in accordance with a royal conge d'elire. The lowest depth
was perhaps reached when, in the middle of the 16th
century, that body was ordered to elect to a small office
the person whom the existing holder might select, either
his heir or else the person whom his daughter might choose
to marry. l
1 For constitution of the municipality see Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 2, No. I of
March 2nd, 1518. The constitution of Lisbon sent as a model, No. 10, Nov.
29th, 15 19. Fasc. 1, No. 15 of April 1st, 1550, gave the power of nomi-
nation above referred to to a certain holder of an office.
CHAPTER X
D. DUARTE DE MENEZES, GOVERNOR, 152I-1524 — D. VASCO
da Gama, Viceroy, 1524 — D. Henrique de Menezes,
Governor, 15 24- 1526 — Lopo Vaz de Sampayo,
Governor, 1 526-1 529 — Appendix I. The
Successions— Appendix II. Revenue
Settlements of the Goa Villages
D. Duarte de Menezes. — D. Duarte de Menezes, the
new governor, accompanied by his brother, D. Luiz de
Menezes, reached Goa in September 1521. He had won
his reputation in the wars of Northern Africa, but in his
character licentiousness and covetousness were so predomi-
nant that even in quiet times he would have cut a con-
temptible figure. Unfortunately for himself he had to deal
with troubles arising partly from the misdeeds of his
predecessors, and partly from the mistakes of the home
authorities. Emmanuel, King of Portugal, died on December
13th, 1 52 1, and although the news did not reach India for
nine months, still as the change of governors occurred
about the same time, the two events may be considered
contemporaneous. ' One of the earliest acts of the new
governor was to send his brother to Chaul, but his task
there was easy ; the quarrel between the Portuguese and
Guzerat was regarded by Malik Aiyaz as a personal one
with Diogo Lopes, and on the latter's departure, although
1 For a vivid account of the reception of the news of the King's death
at Goa, see Corea, II. 730.
2oo THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
no definite peace was concluded, the former's boats under
Agha Muhamad were withdrawn. Malik Aiyaz himself died
in 1523.
It was fortunate for the Portuguese that the war with
Diu had died down, for troubles had fallen upon them in
Ormuz, to understand which it is necessary to go back
some years. Albuquerque had, in 15 15, fixed the annual
tribute at £5,000, and to show that this sum could be
easily paid — which his captains had denied — he sent to
Portugal in 1508 a detailed statement of the income and
expenditure of the country. Judging from the character of
Albuquerque's own letters, it may be safely said that with-
out perhaps intending to misrepresent facts, this statement
would have received from his sanguine mind the tinge
necessary to prove his case. Anyway, against his statement
must be set the hard fact that between 1508 and 15 17
the full amount of the tribute had never been paid, the
reply to this was that a large part of the income was in-
tercepted by the Ormuz officials. Whatever may be the
truth, this amount of tribute had not been collected when,
in 1 5 17, a sea captain increased it with a light heart to
rather over i?8,ooo. When the arrears accumulated the
attention of the King of Portugal was directed, not to the
exactions of his officers, but solely to the fact that the
money had not been paid; he laid all the treaties and
agreements with the King of Ormuz before a council of
learned theologians who, guided by the precepts of the
canon law, decided that the King of Portugal was the
sovereign of the state of Ormuz.
Under this ruling Diogo Lopes was instructed to take
possession of the whole custom-house arrangements of the
town. That Governor, however, supported by the advice of
the best Indian officials, hesitated to carry out this violent
measure until in the ships of 1520 came, not only reiterated
D. DUARTE DE MENEZES, GOVERNOR, 1521-1524 201
orders, but also a whole staff of officials on the scale of
the Lisbon establishment, he therefore had no choice but
to obey orders. The change was effected, and the feeling
it excited was deep and universal. Diogo Lopes, however,
on his departure left at Ormuz a smaller number of soldiers
even than the regulations required, and when the Captain,
who knew the danger, represented to the Governor that
his force in the face of eventualities, was far too small, he
was roughly told that if he did not like to stay there were
plenty of others willing.
There seemed no hope left for the people of Ormuz
save in an armed rising, for the taking of their custom-
house was but the culminating act of a series which in-
cluded the forcible conversion of several persons to Christi-
anity. The King of Ormuz was then Toran Shah, but the
real power lay in the hands of the chief minister, Sharfu-
d-din. The conspiracy had been brewing for a long time,
and the proposal to kill the Portuguese was openly dis-
cussed in the Ormuz bazaar, but the Portuguese, either
ignorant or careless, took no precaution. A large part of
the colony continued to sleep in the native town, even the
artillery was not mounted on the walls of the fort, and so
far from a proper supply of water being kept, one of the
cisterns was filled with wood. On the night of November
30th, 1 52 1, a sudden attack was made on the Portuguese,
and out of 300 men, women and children 120 were killed;
the survivors escaped to the fort where munitions were
scarce, and where the big guns, even if on the walls, could
not be fired lest the crazy water tanks should burst.
The Portuguese, however, succeeded in beating off the
attempts at storming, and on January 19th, 1522, the King
and his people abandoned their homes to found a new
settlement in the island of Kishm — a course which showed
their despair and their bitter hatred of the Portuguese.
202 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Both Portuguese and Muhamedans suffered much from
hunger and thirst, and scandal said that when the Cap-
tain's brother brought a ship-load of provisions the trading
instinct was so strongly developed in him, that he allowed
the Muhamedans in Kishm, as they were ready to pay
the highest price, to have the first choice of his cargo.
When D. Luis reached Ormuz on April 20th, pressure
was put on him to attack Kishm. This he refused on the
reasonable ground that if the people were driven out of
Kishm, Ormuz would still be no better off; he had, how-
ever, recourse to an ignoble intrigue. Rais Sharfu-d-din
had found that Toran Shah, the titular king, if he had no
will of his own, still had to be humoured, he therefore as-
sassinated him and made another " melancholy little king-
let," 1 Muhamad Shah, a son of Albuquerque's early opponent,
and still a mere boy. D. Luis employed one Rais Shamsher,
a relative of Sharfu-d-din, to assassinate the latter and his
son-in-law Shahabu-d-din; the price agreed on was i?3,ooo
and the wazirship of Ormuz. This bargain was kept secret
even from the Captain of the fortress, and as the presence
of D. Luis in Ormuz kept Sharfu-d-din on the alert, he
left. Shamsher then murdered Shahabu-d-din, but Sharfu-d-din
managed to escape with all his treasure to Ormuz, where
the Captain, knowing nothing of the secret diplomacy, im-
prisoned him ; the puppet king and his new minister returned
to Ormuz.
D. Duarte de Menezes left Goa for Ormuz in February
1523, and on his way there a shameful incident occurred.
Two of his galleys commanded by Bastiao de Noronha,
and Luiz de Noronha — brothers — pursued one day a Muh-
amedan ship from Ranir, near Surat, and by sun-down had
reduced her with artillery fire to a sinking condition , they
' Triste reyzinho. Correa, II. 744.
D. DUARTE DE MENEZES, GOVERNOR, 152 I- 1524 203
lay off the ship for the night and all on board went to
sleep. The Muhamedans, finding their ship foundering,
approached her to that of Bastiao de Noronha, and by a
sudden attack drove the Portuguese overboard. The fugi-
tives scrambled into the sister ship, but they were too
demoralized to attempt to recover their own vessel which
the Muhamedans took safely to Diu ; the brothers went on
with their shame to Ormuz. This was but one instance
of the decay in spirit that accompanied the decrease in
public morality. D. Duarte found Sharfu-d-din still in prison.
A bribe of ,£40,000 taken by the Governor, and a treaty
dated July 15th, 1523, on the part of the nominal king,
agreeing to a tribute of -£20,000 a year, an increase of
150 per cent, put Sharfu-d-din in power and sent Shamsher
to his death. '
The Portuguese historians, usually so diffuse, are signi-
ficantly silent as to many events that occurred during the
time of D. Duarte; fortunately they are not all silent on
the same events. They all, however, dilate on the dis-
covery of the tomb of the Apostle Thomas at a spot near
where Madras now stands; the narrative of Correa is sin-
gularly naive, and as he was an eye-witness of some of the
earlier transactions, singularly valuable. It leaves a feeling
of wonder that in such an entire absence of evidence the
identification of an event historical or otherwise should be
thought complete. 2 It was in connection with this tomb
that Manuel de Frias had been sent, in 1522, by the
the Governor as factor to the Coromandel coast; the im-
portant act, however, which has caused Frias' name to
1 He is said to have been thrown overboard from the Governor's ship with
the chamber of a falcon tied to his neck.
2 Correa speaks of an English Duke George as having been there in
1502 or 1503. This was of course vouched for by tradition. See Correa, II.
721 — 726.
204 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
be remembered was his assumption of a protectorate,
in 1524, over the Ceylon pearl fisheries — an act which
brought much misery to the unfortunate fishermen, and
which subsequently led to the mission of Xavier and the
Jesuits on that coast.
War had for some time been simmering with the Samuri.
The nerveless administration of the corrupt crew that held
the reins of Portuguese government was not even accorded
the respect that is given to a hardy buccaneer. Cargoes
were continually and openly run to the Red Sea, and the
flotilla of Wali Hussain insulted the Portuguese fort at
Calicut with impunity; men of position of that nationality
could not even go through the streets of that town with
any safety. The captain of the fort was Joao de Lima,
one of Albuquerque's captains at the capture of Goa; at
this time, if not altogether crazed, he was certainly so on
the subject of the natives of India; everyone who came
near him was an assassin, and when — no unusual thing in
that latitude — several cobras were found in the fort, he was
persuaded they had been put there to bite him. Hostilities
that had been long pending actually broke out after a riot
arising out of the capture of some women, but although
the fort was besieged it was not at first hard pressed.
D. Vasco da Gama. — The Government in Portugal had
at last become aware of the confusion into which Indian
affairs had fallen, and the King, D. Joao III., selected as
his first Viceroy Vasco da Gama, now a man of 64 years
of age. He came out with all his old prejudices unchanged
and with powers extensive enough to carry out any changes
he might consider necessary. He reached the Indian coast
in September, and died on Christmas Day 1524; during
this short interval he laboured hard to stem the tide of
corruption that was carrying every Portuguese in India
D. HENRIQUE DE MENEZES, GOVERNOR, 1 524-1 526 205
with it. Whether he would have succeeded had he lived,
is more than doubtful. D. Vasco da Gama lived long enough
to order back to Portugal his predecessor, D. Duarte, as a
prisoner. His conduct to him was characterized at the
time as unnecessarily severe, but he knew that he was
delaying his return merely in the hope of getting another
term of office on his death, and he knew that D. Duarte
was carrying off his ill-gotten gains, and had baffled all
his attempts to intercept them. '
If in nothing else, Vasco da Gama introduced an impor-
tant reform into ship-building, for he first began to build
flotillas of light boats to meet the more agile craft of the
coast. Some of his measures were certainly harsh. He
ordered that all hospitals, which were also poorhouses,
should be closed, as he considered they were refuges for
lazy men. Many of his crews died of sickness and some
had to beg in the streets, a sight then new, though afterwards
common enough. From every fortress he touched at he
brought away all save the married men ; and in Cochin his
coming caused such dread that all the Muhamedans left,
and many Portuguese emigrated to the Coromandel coast.
He was buried in Cochin, and in 1538 his remains were
carried to Portugal.
D. Henrique de Menezes. — On the opening of the suc-
cessions 2 the new Governor was found to be D. Henrique
de Menezes, the Captain of Goa, a handsome and courteous
man of 45 years of age, essentially a fighting man with no
experience of administration. He was not avaricious, but
he was suspicious, weak and obstinate, his obstinacy once
1 For the story of his chest of treasures in charge of Bastiao Pires the
Vicar-General, and the ox's skull that marked where it was buried, see
Correa, II. 841.
2 See Appendix to this Chapter.
2o6 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
involved him in a quarrel which, but for the extraordinary
loyalty of the Raja of Cochin, might have led to very
serious consequences, l he was therefore ill-fitted to be
Governor. The interest of his term centres round the
Malabar War, and mainly round the defence of the Calicut
fort.
Dr. Pero Nunez, after doing excellent service as Comp-
troller of Revenue, left India in 1524 on the arrival of his
successor Afonso Mexia. Mexia was a sufficiently remark-
able man to merit a few words, the more especially as
the prominent position he gained under Henrique de
Menezes, combined with a private quarrel with Pero Mas-
carenhas, led him to take in 1526 a certain course of act-
ion and assume a responsibility that caused dangerous
dissensions in Portuguese India. As seen in the light of
his orders and instructions as Comptroller of Revenue,
Mexia is the very type of an active intelligent official
satisfied with nothing less than a personal examination of
every point over which his supervision extended. If copper
has to be made into money, he has some coined before
him to ascertain the cost ; if biscuits, he personally tests
the number that can be made from a given quantity of
flour; if the question be hospitals, he enquires how many
loaves and of what size should on the average be given
daily to each inmate. Earthenware cooking vessels in
coasting boats are too costly as they are easily broken, and
they must be replaced by copper. He was one of the
ablest and most honest officials that ever worked in Portu-
guese India, and to him more than anyone else it is due
that Nuno da Cunha received charge of such well-found
establishments as he did. His body of revenue rules for
the management of the 31 villages into which the island
1 For a detailed account see Correa, II. 921, and following Correa was
then a petty official in Cochin. For another curious instance see Correa, II. 955.
D. HENRIQUE DE MENEZES, GOVERNOR, 1 524-1 526 207
of Goa was divided, is a document of great interest for
an Indian Revenue official even now. It gives a picture
of a village community, such as there are many, differing
of course in details, at the present day, drawn up when
Akbar's great finance minister, Todar Mai, was still a
child. ' Mexia certainly derogates from the solemnity of
one of his official papers by perpetrating a joke, but this
only makes him the more human. He is explaining to the
Commissariat clerk how to get oxen slaughtered in the
cheapest way. The butcher is to receive certain parts:
"Your profit," he continues, "will be only the tongues, that
with them you may tell the King how valuable your services
are."- In 1 53 1 Mexia was sent to Portugal a prisoner, and
his property confiscated.
The more liberal policy of Albuquerque had resulted in
a revival of Muhamedan trade, — a revival which the cunning
of his successors turned to their own profit. Vasco da
Gama definitely embarked on war to the knife with all the
trade interests which he considered opposed to the Portu-
guese, and his successor followed the same line. In one
of his visits to a creek to destroy some shipping, a curious
incident occurred. The Arel of Porakkat was present as
an ally of the Portuguese, but for some reason the Governor
thought him lukewarm and fired a shot at him to wake
him up ; the shot broke his leg and turned a friend into a
bitter enemy who joined the party of the Samuri.
Exasperated at the attacks on their boats, all the Muha-
medans on the coast joined in the siege of the Calicut
fort. The war had been carried on in a half-hearted way
1 The paper is so interesting that I give a full abstract of it at the end
of this chapter. It was based on enquiries begun before Mexia's time. It
is the earliest description, at all events by a European, of a village community.
2 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, Nos. 5 and 531058 — all of August and September;
1526 — are the orders referred to here.
208 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
for some months, but the serious attack was made during
the monsoon of 1525, when landing on the unprotected
coast was difficult. Owing chiefly to the skill of a Sicilian
renegade who had been in the Turkish siege of Rhodes, 1
the Portuguese were hard pressed. In October the relieving
force reached Calicut, the Samuri's troops were driven
from the neighbourhood of the fort; but, as under the
changed policy no fort was needed in Calicut territory
and no peace desired, the place was abandoned after an
unsuccessful attempt to blow it up.
The Governor, D. Henrique de Menezes, was ill at the
relief of Calicut ; soon after he became worse, and died at
Cananor on February 2nd, 1526. He died poor: the whole
term of his government had been one long fight with the
Muhamedans of the Malabar coast.
Lopo Vaz de Samp ay o. — On February 2nd, the day
of Henrique de Menezes 1 death, the second succession -
was opened in Cananor, and by it Pero Mascarenhas was
named as the new Governor. Pero Mascarenhas, who was
at this time Captain of Malacca, had commanded the trained
bands at the attack on Benasterim when his bravery had
won him the signal mark of favour from Albuquerque
which aroused the envy of the other captains. As he was
so far from India it would take a year for the news to
reach him and for him to return, meanwhile the threatened
Turkish attack still hung like a cloud over India, and
hostilities with Guzerat and the Samuri were actually in
progress. It was impossible for the Portuguese settlements
to be left without a head, and it was difficult to decide
how a temporary Governor should be appointed. After
1 This was the siege of 1522, when Rhodes was captured by Sulaiman II.
after the heroic defence of Villiers de L'isle Adam.
2 'Ihe first had been opened on the death of Vasco da Gama.
LOPO VAZ DE SAMPAYO, GOVERNOR, 1526-1529 209
two days' discussion it was agreed by the majority that the
next succession should be opened after all present had taken
an oath to obey Mascarenhas when he returned In the
next succession was the name of Lopo Vaz de Sampayo,
Captain of Cochin. In these debates Afonso Mexia had
taken a prominent part; he had had a violent quarrel
with Mascarenhas over the loading of a ship, and he had
written privately to the King of Portugal complaints of
Mascarenhas that were to bring forth fruit later; at the same
.me it is impossible to find any fault with the decision of
the council which followed the advice he had given It
was imperative to appoint a ruler, and one with the royal
sanction would be more likely to win respect than one
appointed without it. Lopo Vaz, before taking over charge
swore to obey Mascarenhas on his return. '
„ ^ the , arriVa1 ' h ° WeVer ' at G ° a 0f the shi P s of 1526,
the difficulties of the situation were much increased by the
action of Mexia. At that time Lopo Vaz was at Ormuz,
and in his absence Mexia, as next senior officer, received
from the ships a new batch of successions which the King
of Portugal had sent out in supersession of those previously
despatched, but which were dated two months after the
death of Henrique de Menezes, though before the King knew
of that event. These orders had clearly been made inopera-
tive by the death of the Governor whose succession they
were intended to regulate, because the former orders had
already been acted on before the fact that they had been
cancelled was known in India. Afonso Mexia, however, who
probably gave a shrewd guess that the name of Mascarenhas
Had, owing to his complaints, been omitted, or else fresh
orders were not needed, opened the new successions with-
out even the formality of a council. As he expected, Mas-
carenhas was not under these new orders governor, but
Lopo Vaz. Lopo Vaz, though he did not authorize the
H
2 io THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
opening of the papers, accepted the situation, took charge
of the government and ordered the exclusion of Mascarenhas
by force if he tried to land in India. It is impossible to
acquit Mexia of desiring to injure a personal enemy in
adopting that interpretation of the situation which best
suited his own interests.
Mexia carried out the Governor's orders in Cochin by
a levy en masse of the settlers, and when Mascarenhas
reached there at the end of February 1527, he was repelled
by force and several of his followers were wounded. Mas-
carenhas himself, as did his old master, Albuquerque, when
similarly situated, ostentatiously avoided the use of any
weapons. He left Cochin amid a cloud of affidavits, and
reached Goa bar on March 16th, whence he was sent a
prisoner in irons to Cananor, but this did not close the
controversy. During the monsoon months, two influential
men, Christovao de Sousa, Captain of Chaul, and Simao
de Menezes, Captain of Cananor, declared in favour of
Mascarenhas, and the latter went so far as to release him
from captivity. In Goa, also, his party grew, and there was
nearly a riot on August the 9 th when Hector da Silveira
and 16 other fidalgoes were imprisoned as partizans of
Mascarenhas. In all the settlements, save perhaps Cochin,
the poorer sort were also in his favour, and the cooler
heads saw that matters could go little further without
civil war.
Christovao de Sousa, who acted throughout the negotia-
tions with rare disinterestedness, arranged with Antonio
de Miranda, who inclined to the party of Lopo Vaz, that
a body of arbitrators should be nominated by either side
to determine which of the claimants should-considenng
only the good of India-be Governor, leaving the question
of right to the King of Portugal. Lopo Vaz and Pero Mas-
carenhas awaited at Cochin-each in his ship-the decision
LOPO VAZ DE SAMPAYO, GOVERNOR, I 526-1 529 211
of the arbitrators. The court was carefully packed to favour
Lopo Vaz, and on December 21st gave its decision ac-
cordingly. Subsequently, on Mexia and Lopo Vaz the hand
of the King fell heavily for their share in this dispute. It
could not be otherwise, as the difficulty was partly due to
the faulty orders of the King and his councillors. Both were
sent prisoners to Portugal. Mascarenhas recovered i?9,ooo
for unreceived salary from Lopo Vaz as a private debt;
the latter was two years in prison before he was sentenced,
he was then adjudged to receive no pay during his term
of office, fined ^.ooo and banished to Africa. The fine
was, however, remitted, and the banishment only lasted
a short time.
Lopo Vaz, who, in consequence of the decision of the
arbitrators, became undisputed governor, was one of Albu-
querque's captains. He came out first in 15 10, he was pre-
sent at the capture of Goa and in several actions round
that town, he accompanied Albuquerque to the Red Sea,
had been frequently wounded, and had more than once
been the voyage to Portugal : if he was never particularly
distinguished he had never disgraced himself. He was a
capable and provident Governor and gained over several
of his opponents by his tact, but he was never followed
by the fidalgoes with any enthusiasm.
One of the interesting events of his term was the return,
late in 1526, of D. Roderigo de Lima and his suite from
Abyssinia, where they had been since 1520, they brought
back with them an Abyssinian envoy for Portugal. But the
main interest of the period centres round Diu, where hostil-
ities again became acute. The Diu flotilla of small boats
was as effective as ever, and the defence of Henrique de
Macedo's vessel against 33 of them, in an engagement lasting
for eight hours, was a famous one. A representation of
it was for many years painted annually in the verandah of
212 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
the Church Das Chagas in Goa. Another ship of the same
fleet, commanded by Lopo de Mesquita, fell in with a
heavily armed Malabari vessel. After the captain and his
brother, Diogo de Mesquita, followed by thirty fighting
men, had boarded her ; their own ship — injured in the fight
and crushed in the tumble of the sea by its heavy opponent
— broke the grappling rope and sank. Though left alone
in the face of 200 enemies, the boarders carried the Malabar
vessel, only to find her apparently ready to founder. The
only boat would hold but few men, so the captain sent
her off with his brother Diogo, a few of the Portuguese,
and such of the more valuable cargo as they could at the
moment lay their hands on, to make the best of their way
to shore. Lopo de Mesquita, with the rest of the Portuguese,
managed to bring their prize safely into port, but Diogo
and his boat were snapped up by the flotilla. The captured
Portuguese remained prisoners for several years, and to
this we are indebted for much of our knowledge of the
events of this time in Guzerat ; for Diogo de Mesquita wrote
an account of his captivity which has not indeed come
down to us, but from which Correa derived the materials
of his history.
In Diu, Malik Ishak had succeeded his father Malik
Aiyaz, but he had none of the latter's ability; his position
was unstable, and he coquetted with the Portuguese. Had
the fidalgoes followed Lopo Vaz, they might have secured
a footing in Diu at this time, but they refused, and the
Sultan of Guzerat superseded Malik Ishak. ' Lopo Vaz
was not only thwarted in his design on Diu, but also,
from the same cause, in his intention of visiting the Red
Sea; the fidalgoes were jealous at the promotion of one
they considered merely their equal. On October 16th, not
1 See Bayley's " Guzerat," p. 336, for the account of these events from the
Indian side.
LOPO VAZ DE SAMPAYO, GOVERNOR, I 526-1529 213
being able to undertake any more important enterprise, he
attacked the stronghold of the petty chieftain, the Arel of
Porakkat, who since the rough treatment of Henrique de
Menezes, had done the Portuguese all the damage that
lay in his power. His headquarters were burned, but twelve
years later, his predatory habits rendered another expedi-
tion necessary.
It was on the return from this that Lopo Vaz heard
that Nuno da Cunha was on the way to supersede him.
Delayed on the voyage, the latter did not cross the Indian
Ocean in 1528, but ran north to Ormuz. He reached
India on October 24th, 1529.
Lopo Vaz left the fortresses well provided and in good
repair, and a very efficient fleet for his successor.
APPENDIX I
Opening the Successions
Successions were first sent out when Vasco da Gama
came out as Viceroy. There was kept in India with
some high official a sealed bag, marked — "This bag
is not to be opened until the death of..." naming
the Viceroy or Governor in whose succession the pack-
age had been sent. In the bag were several sealed
envelopes each with the royal signature. On one was
written — "First succession: not to be opened until the death
of..." naming the same person as on the outside of the
bag. Another was endorsed — Second succession : not to
be opened until the death of the person, named in the
first succession, and so on. On the death of a Viceroy or
Governor, and before the funeral, in the presence of the
corpse, and usually in the church, the bag was brought, its
seals examined by those present, and an attesting document
drawn up and signed ; the required envelope was withdrawn
from the bag, which was again sealed, and a similar
attesting document drawn up as to the condition of the
envelope which was then opened, and the name contained
was that of the new Governor. If the person named was
dead, or in Portugal, and in later times if he were not
between Diu and Cape Comorin, a fresh succession was
opened with similar precautions.
APPENDIX II
Abstract of the Rules and Customs of the Village
Headmen and Cultivators of the Island of Goa 1
In all the villages in this island there are a certain number
of headmen ; - in some more, in some less, according to
custom. The origin of these headmen is lost in antiquity,
but they are descended from those who brought the land
under cultivation. 3 Each village is bound to pay the
revenue assessed on it, which revenue the headmen and
writer of the village 4 shall distribute among the cultivators
and those owning heritable rights in the village, according
to custom.
After paying the Government dues, the balance of the
collection if there be any, or the deficiency in the revenue
if there be any, is distributed among those persons who,
according to custom, should receive such profits or pay
such loss. Loss due to war is remitted. Certain gardens,
palm groves and rice lands pay a fixed assessment and the
owners are not liable for loss, as are the owners of other
lands; there are other lands again which the headmen can
give free of any rent. Should any village be so destroyed
1 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5, No. 58. For the present condition of these com-
munities see Fronseca's Goa, p. 20.
2 k ' Gancar " is the word used. They are called " lambardars " in Northern India.
3 The names of the villages are given, and in the list 8 are called principal,
the rest are subordinate.
4 The writer of the village is, in Northern India, the "patwari." It is not
stated how the revenue of each village was calculated, probably by customary
rates on the actual cultivation.
216 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
that it cannot pay its revenue, the headmen and inhabitants
must inform the chief thanadar and the writer of the island, '
who shall visit the spot, and finding that the loss is as
stated, they shall call together the headmen of the 8 chief
villages. The headmen of the other villages may come,
but the business lies with those of the eight. When they
are all met, and the said chief thanadar and the writer of
the island are present, the headmen of the destroyed vil-
lage may make it over to the headmen of the 8, who are
bound to take it, and in the presence of the officials put
it up to auction and lease it to the highest bidder. The
balance of loss on the lease as compared with the revenue
shall be either spread over the 8 villages, or over the
whole island on those properties which are bound to make
good such losses in such a way that the revenue shall be
paid in full in any case. The lessees shall be bound to
improve their village, and this shall be one of the condi-
tions of their lease. The headmen of the leased village do
not by reason of this lease lose their rights, but shall again
receive possession if they apply at its termination. As the
office of village headman is hereditary it is not lost through
any misconduct, nor is the writership. which is equally
hereditary. Men holding these posts shall suffer in their
persons and purses for any crime; should they be executed
their heirs succeed. Cases of little importance can be
settled by the chief thanadar taking counsel of some head-
men. The worst cases go before the Governor of India,
or the Captain of Goa, or the Comptroller of Revenue if it
affects his jurisdiction. Village writers are appointed first
by the headmen ; they are not removable for any fault, and
the office is hereditary. Headmen can arrange for the
cultivation of waste by leases at any rate of rent they
J Kanungoe of Northern India.
APPENDIX II 217
please up to 25 years, but after that time lands must pay
the customary rent. The usual rate is for each strip of 1 2
paces broad, (the distance between two palm trees) up to
100 trees in length, at five tangas of 4 barganim the tanga
(about 6s 8d). Betel plantation lands are let in plots
of 5 cubits square (that is from one plant to another) up
to 100; if irrigated from a well the 100 plots pay 4 bar-
ganims, if from running water 6 barganims. Gardens and
plantations like these descend from father to son, and the
holders cannot be dispossessed unless there be any special
custom to the contrary. The writer of the island must be
present at all meetings of the chief headmen with the offi-
cials, to make notes of the proceedings and resolve doubts.
The village writers in the same way must attend all meet-
ings of their particular village. Headmen can make grants
to the village officials, such as the Brahmin of the temple, the
village writer, the watchman, rent collector, washerman,
shoemaker, carpenter, blacksmith, and the sweeper and
the dancing girls of the temple. When once given
these grants cannot be resumed, nor can others be made;
but when a grantee dies without heirs, a new appoint-
ment may be made and a grant can be made to non-
residents. When an assembly is ordered all the headmen
must be represented, but the village headmen of a village
may attend by proxy. No assembly can be held unless all
the headmen that should be there are represented. One head-
man may not sell his property without the consent of all
the headmen of that village. No sale can take place with-
out the signatures of the seller and all his heirs. Should
any headman abscond to avoid paying his revenue, there
shall be a meeting of the headmen, who shall fix a term
within which the headman must return, and failing that, his
heirs must take up the inheritance. Should they refuse, it
may be given to any one who will take it and pay all the
2i8 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
outstandings. Should a headman abscond for debt or for
any other reason, and his heirs refuse to take up the pro-
perty, then the immovable property shall go to the head-
men, who shall be responsible for all arrears of revenue, and
the movable shall escheat to the king. The rice lands
which are not in separate ownership shall, according to
the custom of the village, be let annually by auction,
and should there be in any village a rule that outsiders
may bid at these auctions, it must be carried out. The
headmen are bound to supply forced labour ' to clean
the walls of the city from all jungle growth. In disputes
as to real property the only competent evidence is that
of written documents and the book of the village : should
there be none and the book of the village be lost, the
possessor shall be put to his oath in the Temple of
Uzu(?). Disputes as to debts to be decided in the same
temple. No loan of over 50 tangas (£5 7s) to be made
save in writing. Money can be lent at interest to receive
one barganim for every six tangas and no more. J Arrears
of interest shall never exceed the principal. The following
are not competent witnesses : youths under 16 — a drunkard —
a blind, dumb, or deaf man — a pimp — a day labourer — -a
gardener — a gambler — a son of a prostitute — a man de-
clared infamous by law — a man with an enmity to another
as against his enemy. These can all give evidence in petty
cases. On the death of a man without a son, even though
his father be living, his property falls to the King unless
he and his father are joint owners. If a man have four
sons or more or less, his property cannot be divided amongst
them against his wish ; if he agrees, all sons shall share
equally, but they must maintain their father. If any son,
1 "Begarins."
- If this be annual interest, it is about 4%; if monthly, just 50%
APPENDIX II 219
after partition, turn Muhamedan or jogi, ' the King shall take
his property. When a man whose property falls to the King,
dies, the headmen of the village are bound to inform the offi-
cials before he is buried, or burned as the case may be. When
such property is revenue paying, and has to be sold, residents
of the village and relatives shall have a right of preemption,
this right shall be exercised within five days of the sale.
In the case of movable property there is no right of
preemption. Inheritance is from father to son and grandson
downwards and to fathers and grandfathers upwards. Besides
these only brothers can inherit — daughters never. Thieves
shall be punished according to law, and stolen property
restored to its former owner. Treasure trove shall belong
to the King. If a man be married to two wives and have
four sons from one and one from the other, or whatever
the number may be, the heritage is to be divided in half,
the one son of one wife getting as much as the four sons
of the other. : Girls shall not inherit. No official is allowed
to take bribes or to hold land or to engage in trade
within the limits of his jurisdiction. Headmen shall not
levy any cesses for themselves or for the captains or other
officials, under heavy punishment. Whoever smuggles shall
pay eleven times the duty, if found out. The chief thanadar
and the writers shall be fed when they visit the village,
according to custom. If any peon be sent in the public
service he shall be paid for every day he is delayed in
the village, two measures of rice and one real [ l kd) for betel.
At any festival where betel, sweetmeats etc. are distributed
the chief headman of every village shall receive it and
1 "Which are as ciganos are among us."
- This method of division is known, among other names, as jorubhant or
division by wives, in the N. W. P. The other method is bhaibhant or di-
vision by brothers. By No. 72 of the same vol. of Ar. Port. Or. the provision
in the text was modified and either form of inheritance was allowed ; according
to local custom.
2 2o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
after that the other headmen, according to custom. When
any list of names has to be prepared the same order shall
be followed. When the headmen are collected, the chief
headman of the village of Neura shall proclaim what has
been agreed in council and ask for dissentients. The vil-
lage of Taleigao, by right of preeminence, begins rice cutting,
and the headmen have to present a bundle annually at
the chief altar of the Cathedral, and the Factor and Vicar
shall spend 4 pardaos on necklaces to put round their
necks. In each village the chief headman shall begin the
sowing and the reaping, and the same order shall be fol-
lowed in annually thatching the roofs of the houses with
palm leaves. After the principal headman has begun there
is no defined order. Dancing girls shall go first to the
house of the chief headman ; if there are two equal the girls
can choose which they please. When two headmen equal
in rank have to take betel, they shall stand together with
their arms crossed left over right; and if one says his
honour is greater as he took the betel in his right hand,
the other can say that his honour was greater as his left
hand was above the other's right. ' When two men are
equal they can sell their right to any other, or, to save
dispute, the writer of the village can receive the betel. No
one can use a torch, palanquin or umbrella without a royal
license, unless he has inherited such a right. There are
two kinds of these rights, one in which the man is allowed
to pay the bearers and buy the oil himself, the other
where the government pays for these ; and again there may
be a right only to have one of these three articles.
1 This is unintelligible as an Eastern would not receive in his left hand.
CHAPTER XI
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, I 5 29— I 538
WHEN the news reached the King of Portugal of the
disputes in India on the opening of the successions, after
the death of D. Henrique de Menezes, he selected as the
new governor Nuno da Cunha, the son of Tristao da Cunha.
Nuno da Cunha, who was born in 1487, had already been
in India with his father ; he was at the capture of the
Socotra fort in 1507, and was knighted after the fight on
the Malabar coast in November of the same year; his
father was still alive, and in fact survived the son, and
only died in 1540. The new Governor was ordered more
particularly to build a fortress in Diu, but he was also to
build another somewhere in the territory of the Samuri.
He took with him his brothers Simao and Pero Vaz da
Cunha, and his fleet consisted of 11 vessels, carrying 3,000
men. The voyage out was most unfortunate, both of his
brothers died before they reached India, sickness swept
away a large part of the crews, and 4 vessels, including the
flag-ship, were lost.
The Tagus was left on April 1 8th, and as early as May
6th one of the vessels was sunk by a collision, with the loss
of 1 50 persons. Castanheda, the historian, sailed in this fleet
with his uncle, but their ship was a bad sailer and was
left by her companions off the Guinea coast. The captain,
put on his mettle by the desertion, shifted the cargo till
her sailing improved, and then watched her course day and
222 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
night ; she and one other were the only ships that reached
India that year from Portugal; they arrived, however, with
many of their crews dead. At the end of October, while
Nuno da Cunha's vessel and two others were at anchor
off the Madagascar coast, the sea rose without any gale,
the rotten cables of the flag-ship parted one after the other,
and the vessel was wrecked ; the crew, who saved little more
than their lives, were huddled on board the other two
ships. Eventually, the remains of the fleet collected at
Malindi, too late to cross to India that year. Malindi is
an open and rather dangerous roadstead. The crews wanted
employment, and the Shaikh of Mombasa, near by where
the harbour was better, showed no eagerness to receive
them; the place was therefore attacked and sacked. The
crews were sickly from the long voyage ; the only food in
Mombasa, rice and millet, was unsuitable, and 400 men,
including Pero Vaz da Cunha, the Governor's brother, died.
After some months stay, at the end of March 1529, the
town was fired, and the remains of the expedition left for
Ormuz, which was reached on May 19th.
At Ormuz, Sharfu-d-din was in power and more satisfied
than ever that money was the great lever to influence the
Portuguese. Nuno da Cunha, however, had hardly reached
Ormuz when a curious incident occurred. Manuel de Macedo,
who had taken Sharfu-d-din to Goa at the end of 1527,
had carried to Portugal strange stories of the doings of his
countrymen in India, and of the wealth of some of the
native chiefs, more especially of Sharfu-d-din. The King
apparently feared lest all this wealth should go to his
subjects, and consequently adopted the extraordinary course
of sending Macedo back to Ormuz on a special mission to
take Sharfu-d-din prisoner and bring him to Portugal, and
that without reference to the Governor and in entire dis-
regard of how it affected his plans. Nuno da Cunha was
NUNO DA CUNHA GOVERNOR 1529— 1 538 223
naturally angry, but Sharfu-d-din himself remained calm. "If
I can take my money," he said, " I have no fear," and he was
right. He was for a short time detained in prison, curiously
enough in the same that contained Lopo Vaz, but after-
wards he was at large, and eventually, in 1545* was sent
back to India and became as powerful in Ormuz as ever.
Nominally as a punishment for the murder of one Rais
Hamid, who had been minister while Sharfu-d-din was a
prisoner in Goa, the Governor on August 27th, 1529, issued
an order to the captain of the fortress to collect annually
in future £ 33,000 as tribute instead of £ 20,000. '
The deportation of Sharfu-d-din had one unexpected
result. Among the most powerful of his relations was
Bahau-d-din, the Governor of Bahrein, and although in no
sense a rebel, he resisted all attempts to exact a higher
tribute from him. On September 8th, 1529, Nuno da Cunha
despatched 300 men under his brother Simao da Cunha to
bring him to terms. Simao, when he reached Bahrein on
September 20th, found that Bahau-d-din had hung out a
white and a red flag, and had left the Portuguese to take
their choice of peace or war; but although the Bahrein
garrison was only too anxious for peace, the Portuguese
fidalgoes were opposed to any arrangement. The invaders
landed and prepared to breach the walls; but it was the
sickly season, and before long there were only 3 5 men left
fit for duty, there was therefore nothing to be done but to
retreat. Ropes were tied to the feet of the sick, and they
were dragged to the boats. For supplies and refreshments
they had to depend on their magnanimous opponent, and
but for native sailors their ships could not have left the
harbour. Simao da Cunha died of grief, and only a small
remnant of the force returned to Ormuz.
1 This order is given in Botelho Tombo, p. 85.
224 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
After carefully weeding out all opponents in Ormuz, Nuno
da Cunha left that place on September 15th, reached Goa,
where he was received with considerable pomp, on October
24th, and assumed office on November 25th. Few Governors
of Portuguese India ever took over charge of the military
and naval forces in such an excellent condition as did Nuno
da Cunha from Lopo Vaz, ' and it was owing to this that
he was able to at once harry the coast in a way that no
other Governor had ever attempted.
Diu was, however, the centre of interest during Nuno da
Cunha's whole term. Early in 1530 to be nearer it the
head-quarters of government were moved north from Cochin
to Goa, which from this date became in name, as it
had ever since its capture been in reality, the capital of
Portuguese India. Diu was at this time in the kingdom
of Sultan Bahadar, a grandson of that Sultan Mahmud
Bigarha who ruled Guzerat when the Portuguese first
reached India. Sultan Mahmud had died in 1511, and
Sultan Bahadar secured the throne on his father's death
in 1526, after a struggle with his brothers. Malik Ishak
who had succeeded his father Malik Aiyaz as Governor
of Diu, was in 1530 a fugitive in the Rajput country, where
he was soon afterwards killed by order of Sultan Bahadar ;
his place in Diu was taken by his brother Malik Toghan.
To prepare for Diu, every available Portuguese was called in ;
ships were even sent to the Coromandel coast with free
pardons to all offenders, to sweep in recruits. The govern-
ment arsenals and dock-yards worked their full time, and
private individuals were tempted to embark their fortunes
by the promise of the command — at government rates of
pay — of whatever class of ship they provided. Correa tells
us that he fell also into the prevailing "foolishness" and
1 The credit of this was due to Afonso Mexia more than to any other
person.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 225
built a lateen-rigged vessel at a cost to himself of =i?iSO,
and now, he adds, " in my old age the King will not allow
me to forestall my allowance to buy myself a shirt." Castan-
heda, the historian, was also with this fleet. Da Cunha did
not confine himself to force, for he also employed diplomacy.
A Persian merchant, "Coge Percolim", ! was sent to work
on the fears and cupidity of Malik Toghan, and, as far as
can be gathered, with some success ; for it would seem that
the imposing force of Da Cunha was only to give a colour
of good faith to a pre-arranged surrender.
The Governor left Goa on January 6th, 1531. His capital
was almost deserted and the force collected was imposing ;
for, including those of sutlers, there were 400 vessels
in Bombay harbour, one of the most beautiful in the world.
The scene aroused the enthusiasm of Correa, but the
Muhamedan spectators were critical; when they saw that
Nuno da Cunha, though in good health, required a page
boy to prop him while he rode, they said: "This is not
the man to take Diu." They were right; the Governor
was physically not what he had been when 24 years before
he had raced Afonso de Noronha for the honour of place
at Socotra fort. After a stay of several precious days in
Bombay he went to Daman, where, standing on a cask-head,
a herald went through the form of proclaiming defiance to
the Sultan of Guzerat with whom they had been fighting
for many years. There was at least no hypocrisy: the King
of Portugal, it was said, as ruler of the sea wanted Diu, and
he meant to have it.
There was on the Guzerat coast, some 8 leagues east
of Diu, a rocky islet, separated from the mainland by a
narrow channel, called by the Portuguese from the tragedy
1 Orta mentions him frequently in Colloquios as a very learned man. He
calls him "Coge Perculim". The Mirat-i-Sikandari puts this expedition in
1533, confusing it with Nuno da Cunha's second visit. — Bayley's Gujarat, p. 368.
15
226 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
soon to be enacted there, the Island of the Dead. 1 It was
strong by nature, and a small garrison of 800 men with
1 ,000 labourers was busy fortifying it. The possession of this
island would in no way assist the Portuguese design on
Diu any more than the loss of the men there would weaken
the Diu garrison, and in a council there were many who
opposed an attack. The Governor and the majority who
hoped to terrorise their opponents carried the day. On
the arrival of the fleet the garrison offered to surrender
on condition that they should go free with their wives,
children and private property, but to these terms the
Governor refused to accede ; they must all be enslaved.
To the honour of the Portuguese he stood alone in this
determination.
Either side spent the day in preparing for the fight. As
the island was surrounded by the Portuguese vessels escape
to the mainland was impossible. The garrison knew that all
resistance to the overwhelming force brought against them
was in vain, and rather than that their wives and children
should fall into the hands of the hated Portuguese they
killed them. An eye-witness tells us that he saw on a rock
by the water's edge one man with four women. He rowed
in shore to capture the women, but the man drew his dagger
and cut the throats of two before he was brought down
by a musket shot. Seeing no other chance of death the
other two women threw themselves into the sea, and though
they were picked up, they eventually succeeded in attaining
their end, and drowned themselves rather than be slaves.
The next day the place was stormed ; the resistance was
stubborn. Muhamedans forced their way along the shafts
of the Portuguese lances to get home one stroke before
1 The Indian name is given by the Portuguese as "Bete", which is generic.
There are 3 small islets — Shial ISet, Sawai Bet and Rhensla Rock — some 26
or 28 miles E. of Pi the tragedy probably occurred on one of these.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 227
they died. Everything living on the island was killed. The
Portuguese lost 150 killed and wounded, and among the
former Hector da Silveira, a man they could ill afford. Eight
days were spent at this islet, where the Governor awaited
in vain the coming of the Jew and the Persian — his two
emissaries in Diu; they had been prevented from leaving
the town by the arrival there, 6 days before Nuno da Cunha's
attack on this islet, of reinforcements from the Red Sea.
The delays of the Portuguese had lost Diu.
To explain these events it is necessary to go back some-
what. Sulaiman, who commanded in the Red Sea, had from
1 5 17, the time of Lopo Soares' visit, remained on injedda,
awaiting reinforcements from the Ottoman Turk. About
1529 these came in the shape of certain vessels commanded
by one Haidari. The new comer fell out with Sulaiman,
and killed him, but Sulaiman's death was revenged by his
nephew Mustafa, who killed Haidari. Mustafa did not at
once leave the Red Sea; for some months he besieged
Aden, whence he was driven by the rumoured approach of
the Portuguese fleet. Having failed here, and fearing the
vengeance of the Turk for the death of Haidari, he started
for India. In one ship he put his harem and the pick of
the artillery, and into another, commanded by Sifr Agha,
he put his treasure, which was considerable ; his force con-
sisted of 600 Turks and 1,300 Arabs. The arrival of these
ships in Diu harbour changed the whole aspect of affairs.
Mustafa took the charge of the defence from the nerveless
hands of Malik Toghan. He mounted his artillery — far
superior to anything made in India — where it was most
needed ; he mined the entrances to the city and distributed to
the best advantage the defending forces. As the Portuguese
were coming to an anchor before Diu, on February nth,
1 53 1, Mustafa gave them a taste of the power of his artillery
by three well-aimed shots from a "basilisk", that threw
228 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
up where they struck "a jet like a whale spouting," and
compelled Da Cunha's ship to shift her berth.
A recognizance made in person by the Governor con-
vinced him that an attack on the sea face was hopeless;
batteries commanded every approach to the chain that
guarded the harbour : a land attack might have been more
hopeful, but there were not enough men to defend the ships
if sufficient force were landed. Something had, however, to
be done, and the plan, if plan there were, was to breach
one of the forts near the chain, break the chain, attack the
Turkish ships, and master an isolated fort standing in the
harbour. The next day selected ships battered the forts
at a distance of some 50 yards with 40-pounder guns, firing
double charges, until all these guns burst; but the ships
received much more damage than they inflicted, and in the
evening they were withdrawn. The loss of the Portuguese
has not been recorded; it must have been heavy. The
panic at the failure was such that, when the Muhamedans
fired a salute in honour of their victory, the crews abandoned
their most crippled ships and with difficulty were induced
to return, and had the enemy's flotilla dared to come out
several of them must have been captured. When damages
had been repaired the fleet sailed away in considerable
disorder — a defeated force. Sultan Bahadar of Guzerat
recognized in Mustafa the preserver of Diu ; he gave him the
title of Rumi Khan and made him Captain of Broach. The
burning of Goga and the prosecution of the coast war did
not compensate the Portuguese for the check they had
received. The Governor returned to Goa on March 1 5th.
Before continuing the story of Diu, there are a few
miscellaneous matters to be brought forward. Deprived of
its sea-borne supplies by the Portuguese flotillas, the
country of the Samuri was suffering the horrors of famine,
but the Portuguese had no intention of granting that ruler
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1 529—1 538 229
easily the peace of which he was desirous. They began
instead an intrigue with his subordinate, the Raja of Tanur,
and bought from him for ^300 the site for a fort at
Chaliyam. ' The place was chosen with judgment, for it
was in the Samuri's country, and a small river navigable
for boats to the Ghats, gave them access to a large stretch
of territory. The Raja of Tanur hoped that, as the result
of this sale, he would be able, like the Raja of Cochin, to
use the Portuguese to shake off the suzerainty of the
Samuri. In feverish haste, lest the Samuri should come
by land, the fortress was finished by March 1532, and an
old man, Diogo Pereira, with 25 years' experience of the
coast and such a knowledge of the language that he did
not want an interpreter, was made captain.
It was during the course of 1532 that Nuno da Cunha
became involved in a dispute with one of his chief subor-
dinates, the details of which throw an interesting sidelight
on the life of the period. 2 Antonio de Macedo was the
chief judicial officer in Goa; in civil matters his orders
were final, but in criminal they had to be countersigned
by the Governor; his reputation stood high. To one part
of his duties he strongly objected, and that was to leave
his judicial work to ride before the Governor, with his wand
in his hand, "like a porter", and this disinclination was
the beginning of bad blood. The Governor showed his
distaste to the judge's company by keeping Macedo waiting
when he came on duty, and by other slights by which men
in power indirectly manifest their annoyance. One Sunday
while the respectable people were at church, a tipstaff
arrested a man in the street; the man had no connection
1 The present railway station of Beypur stands nearly on the site of this fort.
3 They also perhaps to some extent explain the treatment the king reserved
for Nuno da Cunha when his term as governor ended; he condoned here an
offence against the royal person.
230 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
with Diogo da Silveira, the governor's brother-in-law, but
passing his house he called out — "Help! Diogo da Silveira."
The master was at mass, but his servants and negroes ran
out, beat the tipstaff, broke his wand and rescued the man.
News reached Macedo, who, collecting what townspeople
he could, demanded the prisoner in the name of the King
from Silveira's bailiff. The man was insolent and there was
a dispute; but before the quarrel had gone far the subject
of it came out to look on at the fun, and was promptly
arrested. Macedo returned to his house to await events.
When Silveira heard what had occurred he left the church
beside himself with rage, and came down the street abusing
his servants for not plucking out the beard of that Judas,
Macedo; he did not even spare in his fury the King of
Portugal himself. To prevent further mischief Nuno da
Cunha confined Silveira to his house, and, apparently not
knowing how far he had gone in his abuse, directed Macedo
to report on the whole matter. When Silveira's rage had
cooled he was very anxious to apologise ; the governor also
tried to smooth matters over, but Macedo was obdurate.
Words had been spoken against the King; the serious
charge could only be determined in Portugal, and Silveira
would probably lose his head. When Macedo found that
Silveira was released from his arrest, and also given a
command at sea, he sent a magistrate and notary to
order him to proceed to Portugal in the next ships to
answer the charge of treason. The Governor was furious
and destroyed the record.
When Afonso Mexia was leaving India he, under the
royal orders, made over the successions to Macedo, who, to
keep them dry, put them among the books in his library. '
1 "Bartolo" is the author specially mentioned. Presumably Bartolomeu, the
Sicilian, who died in 1476, many of whose works on canon law were printed
between 1517 and 1545, is referred to. See Migne EnCyclopedieTheologiqae, s.::
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— I 53 8 2 3i
The Governor now sent for them, and as Macedo refused
to give them up save under another royal order, the
former lost his temper, sent a posse of men and had all
the latter's papers ransacked, No successions were found,
but the notes of a slanderous report against Nuno da
Cunha were found. To force him to give up the successions
Macedo was put into irons and kept in solitary confinement.
At this he did not complain, for anyway his life was safe
in prison; out of doors he might have been killed in a
sham street row or shot from behind a wall, and no enquiry
made. When, however, he was thrown into the filthy
prison of Goa, among the common criminals, his fortitude
gave way and he gave up the successions. He returned
to Portugal in the ships of the year, but the king refused
to hear the charge until Nuno da Cunha returned; and as
he died eventually on the way home, it was never gone
into fully, but Macedo recovered some ^4,500 arrears of
pay from the Governor's heirs after his death.
Ismail Adil Shah of Bijapur, from whom Albuquerque
had conquered Goa, did not die until 1534, but the intrigues
for his succession were already afoot in 1532. He had two
sons, Mulu Adil Shah and Ibrahim Adil Shah, both equally
worthless, who in turn succeeded him; but there was a
strong party in the state who favoured his brother, Mir
Ali, a man of whom we shall hear much later on. At the
head of this party was a powerful noble, originally a slave,
called Yusaf of Lar, 1 who had received the title of Assad
Khan and had made Belgaum his headquarters. The land
on the mainland at the back of Goa was within his
jurisdiction, and to purchase the assistance of the Portuguese
he allowed them to occupy Salsette and Bardes, they
agreeing to support Mir Ali. The country thus acquired was
i So I read £ufolarim Castanheda, VIII. 53.
232 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
assessed to bring in £ 16,000 a year, but the Portuguese
overstepped their bounds by building a fort in Rachol.
After the death of Ismail, Mir Ali for a time fell into the
background, (he was but a pawn in the game) and Assad
Khan joined his master Ibrahim Adil Shah against the
Portuguese ; pressure was thus brought to bear to make
them restore the two districts. A desultory war continued
for some years with varying success. In one of the fights
the Captain of Goa was killed; and in the rains of 1536
Goa itself was hard pressed, and the spirit of the garrison
sank so low that they had to be driven to the front, and
in the face of the enemy preferred being taken prisoners
to fighting. When Nuno da Cunha, however, in 1538,
blew up the Rachol fort, the war ended with the temporary
evacuation of the two districts of Salsette and Bardes. It
was not till a few years later that the Portuguese finally
obtained possession of them.
In 1528 one Martim Afonso de Mello Jusarte was sent
on a voyage to the far East: his voyages were among
the abortive attempts of the Portuguese to gain a footing
in Bengal. Wrecked after crossing the bay, he, with some
companions, made his way in a boat up the Pegu coast,
intending to go to Chittagong. The sufferings of the ship-
wrecked men from hunger and thirst were very great, and
several were accidentally poisoned by eating wild beans ;
but their thirst they lessened by the old expedient of
sucking a bullet, and their hunger they appeased by a
lucky find of turtle eggs which they cooked in a rusty helmet.
Deceived by some fishermen, they found themselves, not
in Chittagong, but in Chakiria, to the south of it, the
capital of Khuda Bakhsh Khan, a petty chieftain subordinate
to Bengal. Khuda Bakhsh Khan imprisoned them, but
promised them their liberty if they would fight his enemies ;
when they had helped him, however, he broke his word.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 233
An attempt to escape resulted in a closer confinement and
the sacrifice before their eyes of one of their number,
Goncalo Vaz de Mello. Eventually Martim Afonso was
ransomed for i?i,SOO, through the good offices of Khwaja
Shahabu-d-din, a merchant of Chittagong, and was sent
with his relative, Khwaja Shakr Ulla, to India, where he
arrived in 1530.
When therefore Shahabu-d-din got into trouble with
Nasrat, Sultan of Bengal, and wrote to ask the assistance
of the Portuguese, Martim Afonso was naturally selected
for the command of a friendly trading expedition. An account
of his experiences will show the difficulties the Portuguese
met with in opening up intercourse with a land-locked
country, like Bengal, not depending on seaborne trade for
its necessaries. He had five ships: one, the San Rafael
with 150 men, belonged to Government; the rest were
private property; the cargoes were joint-stock ventures.
The ships reached Chittagong in safety and were well
received by the governor of the town. 1 The custom dues
were very high (rather over 30 per cent.), but when the
Portuguese began to smuggle freely no notice was taken.
An experienced trader told the Commander this was sus-
picious and boded no good : " The sauce the Bengalis
serve us will be bitter to the taste," said he; but his
warnings were disregarded. Some Portuguese were sent
up country to the Sultan at Gour, with valuable presents
worth some i? 1,200; it was characteristic that part con-
sisted of cases of sweet waters robbed from a Muhamedan
vessel, with the names of the original owners still attached. 3
The natives of the country were venal and servile, and
1 A Portuguese description of Bengalis calls them "False and thieves;
people who get up quarrels as an excuse for robbery."
- They had come from the Sufiturk, a ship of 800 tons richly laden — captured
at Shahr on the Arabian coast.
234 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
the Portuguese took full advantage of these qualities. No-
thing appeared on the surface, but in reality all offences
were treasured up against them, and when orders came
from the Sultan to arrest them and confiscate their goods,
attentions were redoubled. Martim Afonso and his cap-
tains must honour the Governor's poor house with their
presence at a banquet. They were so confident as to go
with their swords only. During the banquet, which was in
a courtyard surrounded by walls, the Governor complained
of sudden illness and left. The doors were closed, and
the Portuguese caught like "fowls in a coop." The walls
were lined with archers who fired among them and killed
several, until, from the safe vantage ground of an aperture
overlooking the room, the Governor counselled the survivors
to surrender. There was no other course for them to
adopt. Of the other Portuguese on shore some were killed,
some escaped to the ships, and property valued at i° 100,000
was confiscated. Nearly all the fidalgoes had been netted
by the Governor ; but a few who had preferred a hog-hunt
to the banquet, escaped. The prisoners were taken to
Gour with every mark of indignity, and were nearly starved
on a very inadequate allowance. An attempt was made
a few years later to ransom them, but the sum demanded,
<£ 1 5,000, was refused as exorbitant, and Chittagong was
burned in revenge. All save four were released in 1537,
just before Sher Shah captured Gour and killed Sultan
Mahmud ; the death of that monarch gave liberty to the
rest.
Nuno da Cunha had never through all the other ques-
tions that demanded his attention lost sight of Diu. He
had failed in war, and now tried diplomacy alone. Malik
Toghan, who was still in command there, kept the govern-
or's numerous spies and secret envoys in play sufficiently
to prevent their losing all hope of ultimate success. The
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529—1538 235
accredited envoy to Sultan Badahar was the governor's
secretary, Simao Ferreira, but his efforts were neutralized
by his interpreter Joao de Santiago.
The history of this adventurer is curious enough to merit
a few words. Born in Africa, he was enslaved by the
Portuguese in early youth. They made him a Christian ;
and his master, a caulker, taught him his trade. Together
they more than once performed the Indian voyage; and
when his owner died in Goa and left him free he did not
begin the world with quite an empty purse. He started
next as a travelling purchaser of precious stones, and being
naturally quick, picked up an acquaintance with several
languages, and, if scandal did not speak falsely, was as
ready, if it served his turn, to worship in a Hindu temple
or a Muhamedan Mosque as in a Christian Church. When
he found that Southern India could no longer hold him
he drifted to Ormuz, where for some time he stood in
high favour with the king; but the Portuguese had before
long to interpose to save him from death. He lived after
this quietly at Goa until the governor's secretary selected
him as his interpreter. He not only balked his employers
at Diu by his intrigues, but managed to secure the good
graces of Sultan Bahadar and hardly waited till Simao
Ferreira was out of the country to take service with him.
He received the title of Frangi Khan and for the next
few years he played a certain part in Guzerat history. '
Simao Ferreira so far succeeded that he arranged a
meeting between Sultan Bahadar and Nuno da Cunha,
who therefore left Goa in October 1533. His expenses had
1 For his death see page 249. Apparently he is referred to under the
name Sakta, which is possibly a corruption of Santiago, and as such should
read Satgo in the Indian historians — at least Sakta was converted by Baha-
dar to the Muhamedan faith and called Firang Khan. — Bayley, "Gujarat,"
P- 39 1 -
236 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
been again enormous, for Goa had been ransacked to give
splendour to his fleet. But by the time he got to Diu
Bahadar's mood had changed ; he would not fix a day for
the interview. The most picturesque incident of this visit
to Diu was the challenge to mortal combat given by Manuel
de Macedo, in Bahadar's open darbar, to Rumi Khan. The
ostensible reason was that Rumi Khan had tried to sup-
plant Malik Toghan at Diu. The challenge was accepted,
and the fight was to have been on the sea, either in his
own boat alone, but Manuel de Macedo waited in vain a
whole day for Rumi Khan.
Though Bahadar would not meet Nuno da Cunha per-
sonally, he sent to him an envoy — Khwaja Shaikh Iwaz —
offering a grant of Bassein and some territory round it
estimated to bring in i?3 0,000 annually, if he could only get
peace. Pressed by Humayun, the Emperor of Delhi, on the
north, and by the Portuguese on the south, the harassed
monarch saw no other way of escape. With characteristic
oriental diplomacy, however, Badahar was not offering them
something that was altogether his own. Bassein was in the
fief of his subordinate Imadu-1-Mulk, who in 1541, after
peace with Guzerat had been concluded, gave the Portu-
guese considerable trouble with his claims. The conditions
which Bahadar had, however, to accept were hard. All Guzerat
ships for the Red Sea were to put into Bassein to get
their passes from the captain, and no ship of war was to
be built in Guzerat. All horses from Ormuz were to be
brought to Bassein, but after the first 60 Bahadar was to
pay full duty. ' Possession was given to the Portuguese by
1 The treaty will be found in full in Botelho Tombo, p. 134. There
were other conditions as to payments to mosques; release of the 4 Portu-
guese, Diogo de Mescmita and others still in captivity. At the same time
there are difficulties in the chronology. The historians say that Nuno da
Cunha left Diu in a rage in January 1534. They give no date for the
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529 — 1538 237
beat of drum; the villagers came forward with roots and
plants, products of the soil, to give them symbolical entry
on their new territory.
To understand subsequent events it is necessary to trace
the quarrel between Sultan Bahadar and Humayun, the
Emperor of Delhi, which belongs rather to the general
history of India; it had, however, great influence on the
fortunes of the Portuguese, and it is further interesting as
one of the few instances in which the same events are
related by both Indian and Portuguese historians ; the result
of a comparison of both authorities inspires great confidence
in their accuracy. ' Sultan Bahadar of Guzerat had given
an asylum to Mirza Zaman, a relative of Humayun, who
had fled from Northern India after an attempt to murder
his emperor. An embassy sent to demand his extradition
returned with a scoffing reply. War followed, but Bahadar
conducted his campaign with little skill. He wasted his
treaty, but put it later. In Botelho the treaty is dated December 1543, in
figures which admit of no error; as Da Cunha had been dead for 4 years
then, this must be wrong. Botelho himself puts the date as December 1533
and says it was made as Da Cunha had advanced against Guzerat at the
head of a large force. I have followed Botelho.
1 This is of course before clerical influence had infected the Portuguese
histories. As an instance of agreement I may mention the account of Baha-
dar's council held at Mandeshwar in 1535, though this is a very severe test
for both. Correa's account is in III. 598 and 599. The account in the
Tabakat-i-Akbari will be found in Elliot, V. p. 191. The latter history was
written at Delhi in 1593. Correa's account was written before 1566 in
southern India, was taken to Portugal before the Tabakat was written, and
not published till 1858. They could not either have copied the other.
They may have quoted from the same authority, but this is hardly likely.
What went on in an obscure council in distant Rajputana could not have
been much talked of, and Correa would not see a native account. In Correa
the "Capitao Velho" and the "regedor" want to fight in the open. The
Tabakat agrees and gives the name of the "Capitao Velho" as Sadrkhan.
In both, Rumi Khan counselled waiting in the entrenchments, and Bahadar
followed his advice. Correa gives Diogo de Mesquita, who was in Guzerat,
as his authority. Many other points on which the accounts agree could
be given.
238 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
strength in the siege of Chitor, a city of Rajputana, which
he took and sacked, after the besieged had burned their
wives, children and goods, and devoted themselves to death.
The possession of this city in no way affected Humayun,
and while Bahadar was engaged in the siege a large but
unsupported force under Tatar Khan Lodi, which he had
sent towards Agra in the hopes of rousing possible mal-
contents, was cut off and destroyed by the Moghals. When
Humayun advanced against Bahadar the latter awaited him
in an entrenched camp at Mandeshwar. The two armies
came into touch in March 1535. Sultan Bahadar acting on
the advice of Rumi Khan, tamely remained in his entrench-
ments and made no fight in the open. 1 Humayun, on the
other hand, was in no hurry to attack entrenchments flanked
by a tank on the one side and a river on the other, and
defended by powerful artillery. The active and warlike
Moghals cut off all supplies from the camp, and by the end
of April its condition was desperate. On the night of April
23rd, without making any show of fighting, and without
attempting to save his army, Bahadar, followed by four or
five horsemen, fled to Champaner.
The day after Bahadar's flight, the confusion in the
Guzerat camp proclaimed the news ; the slaughter was
terrible, the spoil immense. Rumi Khan deserted to Hu-
mayun, whom for some years he served faithfully as an
artillery officer; but he was eventually poisoned by his new
master. Bahadar, in his flight, passed through his treasure-
house, Champaner, whence he despatched Diogo de Mes-
quita and the other Portuguese prisoners to beg help from
the Governor at Goa; he then continued his flight to Diu.
1 According to the Indian accounts Bahadar promised Rumi Khan the
Governorship of Chitor, but when it was taken by his exertions, refused
to fulfil his promise. Rumi Khan's treacherous advice and desertion were the
consequence. Bayley, "Gujarat," p. 583.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 239
The Moghals sacked Ahmadabad, but their most brilliant
feat of arms was the capture of Champaner. This place
was surrounded by two sets of ramparts, the outer enclosing
a village was difficult, the inner enclosing the hill fort almost
impregnable. It had occupied Mahmud Shah Bigarha in
a siege of twelve years' duration from Jane 1482 before he
captured it. On this occasion the Moghals, guided by some
villagers who supplied the town with butter and wood,
discovered an approach somewhat less precipitous than else-
where. By driving iron spikes into the rock a sort of ladder
was constructed, up which the storming party of 300 men
climbed; Humayun himself was the 41st to ascend. The
plateau of rock on which the fort stood, was gained by
night, and next morning, not without suspicion of collusion,
Ikhtiar Khan, the commander, capitulated, the spoil almost ex-
ceeds belief. The only bright spot now on Bahadar's horizon
was that, in the name of his sister's son, still a child, an
army was collected which -working round to the rear of
the Moghals — recaptured some territory and recovered many
prisoners of Mandeshwar, including 22 Portuguese and French-
men, the remnant of the 70 who began the campaign
with him.
As the south-west monsoon was blowing when Mes-
quita and his companions reached Chaul, neither the Govern-
or, who was at Goa, nor Martim Afonso de Sousa, who
was at Chaul, could at once go to Bahadar's help, and
Bahadar, almost beside himself with terror, and desiring
perhaps not to throw himself unreservedly into the hands
of the Portuguese, sent an envoy to Egypt on September
8th, 1535, with rich presents to buy the help of the Ottoman
Turk. ! The turn which affairs had taken aroused jealousies
1 Turkish accounts put the value of one girdle alone at 30 million aspers,
or about £50,000. Bird's "Gujarat," p. 245, note. Portuguese accounts, put
the total value at 2$ millions, but omit the currency.
2 4 o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
between the governor and Martini Afonso de Sousa, the
commander at sea ; the former ordered the latter on no ac-
count to proceed to Diu, while he sent there privately
Simao Ferreira, his own secretary. Martim Afonso evaded
the governor's order, and he and the secretary were dis-
agreeably surprised when they met off Diu bar on Sep-
tember 2 1st.
Martim Afonso at once got permission to build a fortress
and began work ; an urgent letter from Bahadar to Nuno
da Cunha, dated September 28th, brought the latter to Diu,
and a peace was signed on October 5th, 1535, x confirming the
grant of the site for a fortress, which included the small
fort in the harbour. The King of Portugal was to have no
claim to any of the customs' receipts ; but the curious and
noteworthy clause of the peace is that in which both agree
to prevent religious proselytizing. Nuno da Cunha was
annoyed with Martim Afonso for having forestalled him,
and still more annoyed when he found that he had already
sent a Jew and an Armenian overland with information
to the King of Portugal. A yet more unpleasant experience
of the same nature awaited him.
In the time of Almeida, Antonio Real was Captain of
Cochin and he is often mentioned in Albuquerque's letters,
against whom he persistently intrigued. He had by one Yria
Pereira — a Portuguese woman — a bastard son, Diogo Rotelho.
The mother brought up her son very carefully and educated
him as a pilot; he showed considerable aptitude for carto-
graphy and was the favourite pupil of a Dominican friar
then in Cochin. He made some important corrections in
existing maps and took them to Portugal to show the King.
Encouraged by his reception, he asked for the captaincy of
a fort, and was met with the crushing rejoinder that cap-
1 The original documents will be found in Botelho Tombo, p. 217 and
following.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529—1538 241
tains of fortresses were not made out of pilots. From a
hasty remark it was inferred that he would transfer his
knowledge to some other country, and as the example of
Magalhaens was recent, Botelho expiated his momentary
passion within the walls of a jail. In 1524 when Vasco
da Gama went to India for the last time, he sought and
obtained permission to take Botelho as a banished man ;
Botelho, however, was too ambitious to accept the situation
quietly. During the eleven years he had been in India he had
scraped together some money, and when the news reached
Cochin, where he then was, that there would certainly be
a fort in Diu, he obtained a foist, ran north to Chaul, and
thence crossed to Diu in a smaller boat. There Botelho
took the measurements and plans of the fortress that was
being built, obtained a copy of the trea*y and return-
ed to Chaul. On November 1st he left Chaul with some
8 poverty-stricken Portuguese and 20 slaves, and stood across
to the African coast; all his companions agreed to standby
him. Nuno da Cunha had in the meanwhile been getting ready
a vessel of 250 tons in which to send Simao Ferreira, his
secretary, to Europe with the good news. The disappearance
of Botelho roused suspicion ; it was thought he was making
for some foreign country, and Ferreira had orders, if he
caught him, to kill him at sight and burn his boat. Botelho,
with his 12 days' start, was never caught, but in a mutiny
of the slaves three of his Portuguese were killed, and of
the 6 left, two were ill and two wounded — Botelho himself,
the only navigator on board, could not, owing to his wound,
speak for a fortnight, and directed the course by signs. In
Fayal, Botelho was recognized as a banished man, but he
escaped capture by his audacity. ' The King forgave his
1 An officer feigned to have forgotten the Christian name of one Botelho
who was banished, and asked Diogo if he knew. Diogo disarmed suspicion
16
242 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
escapade in leaving India without permission in recognition
of his zeal, but more than this he did not get ; and his boat
was burned lest men should know that the voyage from
India could be performed in so small a vessel.
From the moment that work was begun on Diu fort in
October until the following March when it was finished, all
high and low worked with a will. " The Portuguese fight
like heroes and work like begaris" (forced labourers), said
Nuno da Cunha to Sultan Bahadar. All ranks were animated
by the hope that this fortress would close the last port
open to the Turks in India. The fidalgoes spent their
substance in providing food for the poorer sort; of these
nobles, Garcia de Sa, afterwards Governor of India, was
among the most respected, and the bastion on which he
worked was as well known by his name as by its own more
proper appellation, the Santiago bastion. In the fort and
the outlying work in the harbour there was accommodated
a garrison of 900 men with 60 pieces of artillery, many
matchlocks and abundant supplies. Manuel de Sousa, a
comparatively young man, was appointed captain.
Hardly was the ink of the treaty dry before the Governor
felt how impossible it would be for him to carry out his
promise to assist Bahadar by land as well as by sea. Not
that anything fresh had occurred since the peace was
signed — the objections that existed after it was signed had
always existed. All the Portuguese in India could not drive
out the Moghals from Guzerat, even to undertake a
campaign under the orders of a general like Bahadar would
be to send them to certain destruction; further, once the
Moghals driven from his borders — if they were ever driven
— Bahadar would be independent of Portuguese help and
not desirous of their presence in Diu. Something, however,
by fraukly saying he was the man. Botelho was ma<le Captain of Caiianor
in 1550, hut lie died of a dropsy within the year. — Couto, \ 1. 8. I.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 343
had to be done, and as his share of the work of expelling
the Moghals in exchange for the fortress of Diu, Nuno da
Cunha sent to Bahadar Martim Afonso de Sousa with 50
horse and 100 matchlockmen ; the result was naturally a
ludicrous failure, and Bahadar had to return to Diu somewhat
disconcerted. No better success attended Manuel de Macedo
who went to defend Broach: a bombastic letter from the
Moghals stampeded the Broach merchants, who bribed their
defender to let them run away comfortably. When the
Moghals approached, Macedo retreated, and Broach, Ranir
and Surat were looted and burned
There came, however, soon after this a change over the
face of affairs, though not through any action of the Por-
tuguese. Bahadar, with his own troops, defeated detachments
of Moghals in scattered engagements; and Humayun himself
was recalled to Northern India by urgent advices from
Delhi. Bahadar's feelings must have been bitter indeed at
seeing his country cleared from the tide of invasion by his
own exertions and by extraneous circumstances, while those
whom he had bribed with Bassein and with Diu had stood
aside and done nothing to help him. Bahadar asked per-
mission of the Portuguese to build a wall to cut off the
fortress from the city of Diu, and when this was refused
he was angered, and said openly that he had been deceived
and that the Portuguese had broken their word.
The Portuguese in Diu lived from the first on the worst
possible terms with their neighbours in the city. Although
the Captain forbade any Portuguese, under the penalty of
a heavy fine, from going more than a stone's throw from
the walls, there were many riots, and several Portuguese
were killed ; the position was indeed almost impossible. We
have only the Portuguese accounts, and it is incredible that
all the provocations came from one side only. Continual in-
fractions also of the treaty-or else what Bahadar considered
244 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
as such — occurred ; his own ships, for instance, were not
allowed to leave his own port of Diu. Possibly smarting
under his injuries, Bahadar may have tried to weave a
combination of Muhamedan powers against the Portuguese,
but he drank heavily, was subject to sudden and uncon-
trollable impulses not governed by reason, ' and was there-
fore unfitted for any calculation that needed a cool head.
That he deeply regretted the treaties he had made with
the Portuguese there can be no doubt ; there is no ground
for asserting that he ever infringed those treaties. He may
possibly have meditated assassinating the Governor if he
had a chance, a but there can be no doubt but that the
idea of assassinating him was always present to the Portu-
guese mind; fabulous stories of his wealth were current
among them, and they looked on him not as a human
being but as a galleon to be robbed. His conduct did not
display either the fear of a would-be assassin, or the
timidity of one who thought his life was in danger.
Accompanied by a very few attendants he came and went
freely in the Portuguese fort, and of one such visit, on
November 13th, 1536, we have two accounts. Bahadar, with Sifr
Agha and a few others, came to the fort, without warning,
at 8 in the evening; he was then very drunk. When word
was brought to Manuel de Sousa that the Sultan was
1 In this both Indian and Portuguese accounts agree. Orta Colloquios
gives unimpeachable authority (Martini Afonso de Sousa) for his statement
that he was addicted to " bhang."
2 Indian historians assert this as well as Portuguese. Nuno da Cunha was
warned from an Indian source that this was intended. Most likely these
rumours were founded only on the ravings of a drunken man, carried and
magnified by intriguers. There are other traces that busy bodies were making
mischief between Bahadar and the Portuguese. One night the Captain (if the
fort was secretly told that Bahadar intended in the morning to invite him to
an interview and assassinate him. The invitation duly came; the Captain,
like a brave man, went alone, but nothing happened. See also the account
in Correa, III. 754. liahadar's drunken talk seems to be mutilated Hindustani
abuse.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 245
at the gate, the alarm was sounded, and with a blare
of trumpets the garrison fell in in two ranks, with lighted
torches. The gates were thrown open, and the sight of
the soldiers drawn up for him to pass through their ranks,
and the glitter of the torches on their arms, sobered, if it
did not frighten, the Sultan. He passed down the line and
was shown over the fort, and was told in courtly phrase
that all was his, but the fumes of the wine had left him :
"Faith, my friend," he replied, "the fort is your King's
and the houses are your own." When they saw Rahadar
leaving the fort unmolested, the Portuguese were furious
with the Captain for his " weakness of heart;" the governor
took the same view, and the Captain received from him a
severe reprimand. To do Correa justice, he had some
qualms over the matter : " In some parts an act of this kind
" would be a breach of faith," he says, " but not in India where
"it is customary. We were not allowed to take such a
"chance by reason of our sins," he sighs. There is grim
humour in a religion which regards the divine permission
to commit a cowardly and treacherous act as a reward of
virtue.
There happened, while Nuno da Cunha had been preparing
to visit Diu, to come to Goa an embassy from Sultan
Bahadar, consisting of Shaikh Iwaz — who had been on
similar embassies before — and Nur Muhamad Khalil, a more
formal envoy who was supposed to be deep in his master's
secrets. For this envoy Nuno da Cunha set a trap, Shaikh
Iwaz assisting him. " Coge Percolim" — the Persian who
had been Nuno da Cunha's emissary in Diu, Shaikh Iwaz
and Nur Mahamad Khalil met at a friendly dinner. 1 The
Governor was careful that the wines were well chosen, and
that a trusty Portuguese was concealed where he could
1 Indian and Portuguese histories agree in this anecdote.
246 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
overhear all the talk. When they had all well drunk,
" Coge Percolim " began by arrangement to abuse the
Portuguese, and Nur Muhamad was induced to reveal his
master's plans.
The Governor had, on hearing the rumour that Sultan Baha-
dar meditated assassination, determined to take any opportun-
ity that offered of making him prisoner. The air was elec-
trical. Sultan Bahadar was a great hunter, and he sent some
recently killed antelope to the Portuguese. When the latter
noticed that each animal had lost some part, one a head and
another a foot, they inferred that the present had a sym-
bolical meaning, which was that the Portuguese were to be
treated as these creatures had been. ' The sapient Joao
Rodriguez, the chief physician, went so far as to say that
the inspection of the recently torn flesh told him that
poison had been introduced into the animals' flesh to kill
those who partook of it. The hungry soldiers were not
to be balked of their meal, and though the flesh should
by order have been thrown into the sea, they ate it, and
it is hardly necessary to say, with no ill effects. This
tension of the atmosphere must be remembered ; it was the
result of years of anxious longing and of present half-
contented desire, and it explains to some extent the tragedy
that was soon to happen.
Early in January 1537 Nuno da Cunha reached Diu. He
feigned sickness to avoid going on shore to meet Sultan
Bahadar, and as an excuse for refusing the invitation to a
banquet under cover of which there lurked, he considered,
a sinister design. Sultan Bahadar was out hunting when
1 All Portuguese writers mention this present of game. One adds also that
it was another present — that of 40 skinny fowls, with their heads cut off,
after his drunken visit in November — that brought home to the Captain of
the fortress the mistake he had made in not capturing Bahadar. The state
of mind that looked on these presents as insults is now difficult to follow.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 247
Nuno da Cunha's fleet cast anchor, and Manuel de Sousa,
the Captain of Diu, was at once sent to him with the
Governor's regrets that the state of his health would not
allow him to come in person. No sooner had Manuel de
Sousa left to return, after delivering his message, than Sultan
Bahadar was seized with one of his sudden impulses, and
ordered his boat to be got ready to row out to see Nuno
da Cunha. Besides the boatmen, Bahadar took with him in
his foist, 2 pages and 7 companions : — Sifr Agha, the Italian
renegade who had come to Diu with Mustafa; the latter's
two sons-in-law, Asit Khan, surnamed the Tiger of the World,
and Kara Hussain; ' Langar Khan and Amin Hussian, two
young Guzerat nobles; Joao de Santiago, the interpreter;
and another Muhamedan. 2 Of his pages, one carried his
sword and another his bow and arrows.
Bahadar was, of course, not expected; he was not
recognized until near the ship, and then all was hurry. Nuno
da Cunha got hastily under a heap of bedclothes, and the
crew were still buckling on their swords when he passed
over the deck, alone and unsuspicious of evil, into the
Governor's room. He stayed there a very short time ; poss-
ibly he felt, when too late, that Nuno da Cunha's ship was
not the place for him : the anxious tension was evident.
The fidalgoes, knowing what happened after Bahadar's visit
to the fort in November, were waiting for the Governor's
1 Kara Hussain was also a European renegade who married the widow
of die Tiger of the World. In 1563, when Couto was in Broach, he was Cap-
tain there, and they used to read the Italian poets — Ariosto, Petrarch and
Dante — together, so he was a man of some education. Indian accounts say that
Bahadar's visit was intended to remove any suspicion from Nuno da Cunha's
mind.
2 One authority gives the name of the seventh companion as Rumi Khan,
the son of Sifr Agha. Sifr Agha had a son who afterwards received this
title, but he does not seem to have been in the foist. The Mirat-i-Sikandari
gives the names of the two young nobles as in the text, and adds 4 other
names which cannot be identified. The author was not a contemporary.
248 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
orders ; but at the critical moment Nuno da Cunha's nerve
failed him, and he kept his eyes sullenly fixed on the deck.
The arrival of a messenger from them, sent to ask for definite
instructions, seems to have aroused Bahadar's suspicion ; he
got up, looked into the verandah to see if men were hidden
there, and then going to his boat, ordered his men to row
quickly to the shore. With the departure of Bahadar, Nuno
da Cunha's presence of mind returned. He called to Manuel
de Sousa and ordered him to at once follow the Sultan's
boat, and tell him that in the hurry he had forgotten to
give him a message from the King of Portugal, and ask
him to await his (the Governor's) arrival in the fortress.
With Manuel de Sousa went Diogo de Mesquita and Antonio
Correa.
This sudden departure of Manuel de Sousa added con-
siderably to the growing excitement, and another order of
the Governor, to all the fidalgoes, to follow Manuel de
Sousa and do as he bade them (they were not told what
orders he had received) only added to the effect. Nuno
da Cunha's ship lay a league from the shore, and the
Sultan's boat had got some distance before Manuel de
Sousa started at about 4 p.m. ; it would have got further,
but the Sultan had stopped to let Sifr Agha get into the
boat rather than leave him behind. ' Bahadar also appears
to have slackened speed when he saw Manuel de Sousa's
boat following him, with de Sousa in the bows, waving to
him. When he reached the Sultan's boat De Sousa gave
the Governor's message, and at Santiago's suggestion he
stepped from his own boat into the Sultan's, but incautiously,
and fell into the water. Bahadar's boatmen pulled him out,
while Bahadar himself sat laughing at the figure he cut.
Meanwhile the other boatloads of overwrought men, with
1 Sifr Agha appears to have been in another part of the ship while Baha-
dar was with Nuno da Cunha.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529 — 1538 249
naked weapons in their hands, were coming up in a bubble
of excitement, ready to take the disturbance as a deliberate
attack on the Captain of Diu.
Who struck the first blow it is impossible to say ; but
the arrow fired by the page, at the Sultan's orders, from
the Sultan's bow, into the air, proclaimed to all that war
had broken out. ' Manuel de Sousa was one of the first
victims. The Portuguese poured into the King's foist; one
was shot with an arrow by the King's page, one was liter-
ally cleft by the Tiger of the World ; another Portuguese
twined his arms round the Tiger, and though he received
20 wounds in the terrible scuffle, never left his hold till
the Tiger was dead. Diogo de Mesquita went straight for
Sultan Bahadar and wounded him with a sword-thrust. :
Bahadar jumped overboard, and either to save their own
lives or his, his followers imitated him. Bahadar caught
hold of an oar, but the Portuguese were killing all whom
they could reach, and he was brained by a sailor for the
sake of a gold dagger he wore ; as the body was never
recovered it was only by this booty that his fate was
known. Of his companions, Sifr Agha (wounded) and Kara
Hussain alone escaped; Santiago swam to the fort and
1 All accounts agree as to the arrow. This appears to have been a recognized
way of declaring war. See Castanheda. II. i6 5 where it is mentioned with
reference to Vijayanagara. For another instance of this in Malabar see Correa,
IV. 708. Similarly the gift of an arrow from the royal quiver was a security
of peace. See also Bayley, "Gujarat," p. 389. Humayun's quiver bound round
a minstrel's loins invested him with the power of releasing prisoners.
2 In connection with this attack of Diogo de Mesquita there is a curious
point. In the account in the Akbar Nama — Elliot, VI. 18, it is said that
Bahadar was attacked by a European " Kazi " ; all the Portuguese accounts
say that Mesquita was the man who wounded Bahadar. "Mesquita" is the Por-
tuguese for a mosque, and "Casis," pronounced almost exactly like Kazi, is the
Indo-Portuguese for a priest. I suggest that the two facts are connected, and
that possibly Mesquita's nickname was Kazi or Casi. He was well known
to the Guzeratis; for his history see page 212. Bahadar was 31 years old
at the time of his death.
250 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
called out for help, but the guard stoned him to death. A
few boats pulled off from the shore, and some 14 Portuguese
in all were killed, and 25 or 30 wounded, in the melee.
The general fear and horror at this great crime were so
great that, but for the exertions of Sifr Agha, wounded as
he was, the town would have been entirely deserted ; later
the Portuguese badly repaid the invaluable services he
rendered them at this time.
Nuno da Cunha appropriated the enormous mass of war
material he found collected in the arsenals, but although
Bahadar's palaces were carefully searched, only a very small
quantity of treasure was brought to the public exchequer.
Sultan Bahadar was beloved by his people, for he had the
one great virtue that in an oriental state condones all
vices — he allowed no tyrant but himself. ' There were some
even among the Portuguese who saw the murder of Bahadar
in its true light. When Martim Afonso de Sousa and the
Comptroller of the Revenue reached Diu ten days after the
event, they did not hesitate to express their opinion ;
but the Governor sent off Isaac of Cairo 2 overland to
Portugal, and the messenger received a pension for the
good news he brought. Sifr Agha was put in charge of
the city and Antonio da Silveira, the Governor's brother-
in-law, made captain of the fort. Sultan Bahadar left no
son, and the Portuguese coquetted with Mirza Muhamad
Zaman, the Moghal who had been the immediate occasion
of Humayun's attack on Bahadar, and who now was a
pretender to the Guzerat throne. They indeed entered into
a formal treaty with him, :l by which, in return for their
moral support and the inclusion of his name in the
" Khutbah " in the Diu Mosque, he granted them Mangalor
1 See Correa, IV. 452. Bayley allows him no virtue, "Gujarat," p. 63.
9 Garcia de Orta mentions this man as noted for his learning. See Col-
loquies, pp. 131 Y. aud 164 Y.
I See treaty in Botelho Tombo. p. 224, dated March 27th, 1537.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 251
and Daman, and a strip of country along the coast, 2'/ 2 kos
broad. Miran Muhamad Shah Farruki, the son of Bahadar's
sister, received, however, so much support that Mirza Mu-
hamad Zaman had to fly, and his followers who desired
the security which the town of Diu could alone afford
them, had to fee the Portuguese with their all before they
could be admitted within its gates. Mirza Muhamad Zaman
himself returned to Humayun's court, and was forgiven, but
was soon after accidentally drowned.
Before completing the history of the connection of Nuno
da Cunha with Diu, there are some matters in other parts
of India to be brought forward. In the 9th century Perumal,
the last King of Malabar, turned Muhamedan, and after
dividing his kingdom among numerous chieftains, left India
for Arabia. His memory in Malabar was still kept green ;
in Cranganor, his capital, wooden shoes and water were
always ready for his use, and on a certain night there was
a great assembly at a temple in his honour. The Raja of
Cranganor was a subordinate of the Samuri's, but with the
example of Cochin before his eyes he was always ready
to seek any means of rendering himself independent. In
this intention he was sustained by the Raja of Cochin until
the latter found that, if he were successful, the Portuguese
would have a factory at Cranganor and seriously diminish
the Cochin trade profits. When Perumal's festival was at
hand in 1536, and the Samuri expressed his intention of
attending it, Cranganor, after casting a longing look at
Cochin, who refused assistance, had perforce to submit.
The Samuri, however, having succeeded in this one
matter, determined on another which brought him into contact
with Cochin itself. He determined to perform those cere-
monies at the sacred stone which his predecessor had removed
in 1503 from Cochin to Eddapalli, which would enable him
to claim lordship over the Southern Malabar States. As
252 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
the Raja of Cochin was particularly desirous that this should
be prevented, the Portuguese, though their hands were full
elsewhere, sent a force to his assistance. The stone was
brought back from Eddapalli to its old resting-place in
Cochin; but, unfortunately for the future peace of the country,
the small payments made to certain Malabar chiefs were
stopped by the Portuguese, this detached them from the
party of the Cochin Raja and was some years later productive
of trouble.
Kunji Ali and his family who were employed by
the Samuri, continued to be a thorn in the side of the
Portuguese. In 1534 they had seized a brigantine off
Quilon and killed all the Portuguese in her; they then
rounded Cape Comorin and were with difficulty prevented
from capturing the forty Portuguese at Negapatam. An
expedition was, however, hurrying up the coast after them,
and they had barely time to fortify themselves in a creek
near Canhameira, when it was upon them. Kunji Ali's fleet
was destroyed and he only escaped in disguise to Calicut.
A more serious raid was that of 1537. Kunji Ali with
his brother Ali Ibrahim Marakkar, and brother-in-law,
Ahmad Marakkar, collected a number of foists in Panane.
Ali Ibrahim with 47 foists avoided the strict blockade of
Martim Afonso de Sousa, and after doing considerable
damage to Portuguese trading vessels, rounded Cape Comorin.
His object was to assist that one of the two factions in
Ceylon that was opposed to the Portuguese, but beyond
sacking Tuticorin nothing much was done. Hearing of the
approach of the Portuguese, Ali Ibrahim fortified himself
on the mainland, at Vedalai in the Gulf of Manaar. Martim
Afonso de Sousa was baffled in his first attempt to round
Cape Comorin by contrary winds, and a boat expedition
which he organized failed for want of supplies ; but in a
third attempt he succeeded in coming to terms with the
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, I 529 — 1538 253
enemy. 600 Portuguese attacked the position held by
8,000 Muhamedans and defeated them, capturing their camp
and its spoils, and burning or securing all their ships. The
Portuguese acknowledged only to a loss of ten killed and
70 wounded. Of the Muhamedans, 800 are said to have
been killed, but their greatest loss was their admiral, Ali
Ibrahim, who died on his overland journey to Calicut.
This action was important as it allowed the Portuguese to
devote all their attention to Diu, with no fear of any enemy
in the rear. Martim Afonso de Sousa returned to Cochin
in February 1538.
The troubles of Ormuz were chronic. The old puppet
king died in 1534, and his successor, a boy of 8, was
poisoned by his uncle, a Goa refugee, who was a mere
tool of the Portuguese. By 1537, owing to the reiterated
complaints against the Captain, D. Pedro de Castello Branco,
the Governor had to remove him from his office. Correa's
account of the proceedings which followed this exhibition
of administrative vigour, may be quoted : ' " D. Pedro
"threw himself into working out his release, and as he had
"much money he produced so many false witnesses to
" contradict the evidence which condemned him, that he
" upset it all, and they drew up a record divided into 4
" parts, each of 4 reams of paper, which I saw, and as
" there was none to accuse him and show up the contradic-
tions, for the King's proctor likes to sleep his sleep
" undisturbed and to make money, justice was lost sight
"of, and D. Pedro was sent back to rob what remained
" and to destroy those who had given evidence against him.
" But our Lord ordered it so that this D. Pedro was robbed
" on the coast by French pirates, who left him nothing and
" robbed the ship, for which some of those who were going
1 He did not return to Ormuz till 1540, but the story is ended here in
order not to break the narrative.
254 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
"to Lisbon in the same ship, complained that they had
"been ruined for D. Pedro's sins." '
After Nuno da Cunha returned from Diu to Goa in
February 1537, Guzerat remained in a very disturbed state. '
Diu was not regularly besieged, but a Guzerat force,
under Ali Khan, stationed on the outskirts of the
town, cut off the supply of provisions. A truce was
made in July 1537, but no definite peace was concluded.
On February 13th, 1538, Nuno da Cunha again reached
Diu, and although nothing certain was known as to
the approach of the Turks, he hurried forward the work
necessary for the safety of the fort. While thus occupied
there came from Ormuz a ship with a Venetian, one Duarte
Catanho, on board. He had lived 20 years with the
Turks, but professed to be still a Christian. He had brought
certain goods for sale overland from the Red Sea to the
Persian Gulf, as the Red Sea ports were closed to prevent
any information reaching India of the Turkish fleet collecting
in Suez. The news this man brought created extraordinary
excitement among the Portuguese, and the Captain of Diu
was not alone in the opinion that he ought to be poisoned :
even in after years men were found to have the same
opinion, for Catanho was observant, kept his ears and his
eyes open, and carried with him to Europe much information
which the Portuguese would have preferred to keep to
themselves. 3
The preparation of a fleet at Suez had for some years
been actively in progress. The town of Shahr, in the Hadra-
maut, some 3 50 miles east of Aden, was a favourite resort
» Correa, III. 842.
- The internal disorders in Guzerat were due to a succession of puppet
sovereigns with little power.
8 Catanho went to Europe in 1538, and was for some years a channel of
communication between the King of Portugal and Turkey. At length he fell
under the suspicion of the former, and was imprisoned.
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 255
of those Portuguese pirates who drove their trade at the
mouth of the Red Sea. These men, not only used the
harbour for a refuge, but even robbed the very boats of
Shahr itself. The local Shaikh, in 1535, paid off old scores
by capturing a number of these freebooters, and curried
favour with the Turks by sending them to Suez. At Suez
the more intelligent were reserved as pilots for the fleet
destined for India, and the balance sent as galley slaves to
the Mediterranean, where they spread among the other
miserables of their class the news of the Red Sea prepara-
tions. When therefore some of these galleys were captured by
Doria, in 1536, he sent the information he had gained from the
slaves to Portugal. Isaac of Cairo, when he carried the news
of Bahadar's death, however, assured the King of Portugal
that that event had caused the Turk to suspend his pre-
parations, and consequently no reinforcements were sent to
India ; but this suspension, if it ever occurred, must have been
very temporary, and the news brought by Catanho was in
fact correct. It was confirmed in a curious way. Sifr Agha,
whom the Portuguese had put in charge of Diu city, first
secretly sent away his wife and children, and then followed
himself, on April 27th, 1538. ' Sifr Agha's flight caused a
stampede among the banias, which the Captain in vain tried to
stop by hanging some of them. It was not long before the
meaning ot his departure was known, for on June 24th he
returned with AH Khan and 19,000 men and laid siege to
Diu fort. Before long the Portuguese found that their force
was too small to defend their extended position, and on
August 9th they retreated from the city; a retreat that
was conducted in some disorder and confusion, and in which
1 Sifr Agha was well received by the Sultan of Guzerat and made Governor
of Surat, of which place he completed the fort commenced by Mustafa Rumi
Khan. Sifr Agha's son also received the title of Rumi Khan from the Sultan
at a later date.
256 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
there was considerable loss in artillery and munitions. The
following day the close siege of the fort and of the outlying
Gogala bastion began. This preliminary attack by Sifr Agha
was very fortunate for the Portuguese ; it showed them the
weak spots in their defence, and during the delay caused by
a slight wound received by Sifr Agha they had time to com-
plete their preparations. At the commencement of the siege
there were in the fort 800 Portuguese soldiers ; 600 fighting
slaves ; 200 Goa craftsmen, and a large number of women,
children and ordinary slaves: in all about 3,000 persons.
Before going further it is necessary to bring forward the
history of the Turkish fleet now coming to Diu. Before
Safar Khan, the envoy of Sultan Bahadar, could reach
Constantinople, the death of that monarch was known
there; but the Sultan of Turkey, flattered by the thought
of getting a footing in India, determined to undertake
an expedition. He supplied the troops and appointed
to the command Sulaiman Pasha of Cairo, who had
to provide the ships. Sulaiman Pasha was a eunuch, a
Greek by birth, advanced in years, unwieldy from cor-
pulence, and with all the defects of his unfortunate class.
By methods familiar to oriental statescraft he gathered
72 vessels in Suez, and he supplied the fleet with artifi-
cers by the simple device of sweeping up the crews
of the Venetian vessels peaceably trading in Alexandria.
His armed force consisted of 1,500 Janissaries, 2,000 Turks
and 3,000 other soldiers. Suez was left on June 22nd; the
passage of the fleet was a terror to all the Red Sea ports,
but at Aden, which was reached on August 3rd, the Pasha's
hand fell heaviest. Shaikh Amr ibn Daud received him with
demonstrations of pleasure, but there were certain events
which Sulaiman did not forget: he remembered how one
of his predecessors, angered at the conduct of this Shaikh,
had sent him 100 bows, 10,000 arrows, and a cwt. of balsam,
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR 1529— 1538 257
a symbolical present meaning that with the arrows he
would slay him and with the balsam embalm him. 1 The
unfortunate Shaikh was enticed into the flag-ship, and
incontinently hanged from the .yard-arm. Aden was sacked,
and in the sack Mir Amrjan, who for many years had
been governor under the Shaikh, was killed.
Diu was reached on September 4th. 1538. While crossing
from Aden the fleet scattered in a storm, and four of the
vessels were wrecked on different points of Western India ;
it was through these wrecks that the Portuguese first learned
that the fleet they dreaded was in Indian waters. Swift
boats sped north and south, and warned the settlements to
be ready. Sulaiman's orders were to seek out and fight
the Portuguese fleet; fortunately for that nation he disobeyed
his orders, and besieged Diu, which was at that time the
most strongly fortified place held by the Portuguese in
India. Had Sulaiman brought the Portuguese fleet to action
he could have destroyed it in detail ; had he even selected
any port other than Diu he could have — at the cost of little
trouble to himself — secured a base for operations at their
expense ; and even were Diu captured the defeat would not be
decisive. The power of the Turks lay in their formidable
artillery ; their metal was heavier than that of the Portuguese,
and their gunners were exceptionally well trained ; in an action
at sea this superiority should have given them the victory.
In matchlockmen the Portuguese with their handier and more
quickly loaded weapons considered themselves superior. The
composition of the Turkish fleet was not homogeneous, for
besides 1,500 Christian slaves from all parts of Europe who
rowed on the benches of the galleys, a Venetian, Francisco,
commanded ten galleys and 800 free Christian soldiers.
Discipline, as far as it was maintained at all, was main-
1 Albuquerque Cartas, p. 95. There is an account of this voyage in Ra-
musio, written by a Venetian who was in the Turkish fleet.
17
258 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
tained by the most summary methods ; we hear of several
hundred soldiers and sailors being hanged for one mutiny.
The weak point in the formidable combined attack that now
threatened Diu was the want of solidarity between the parts
of which it was composed ; the only common bond between
Turks and Indians was hatred of the Portuguese. Ali Khan,
as commanding the Guzerat forces, wanted the Portuguese
expelled to recover Diu island for the Guzerat sovereigns,
consequently he refused to allow the name of the Ottoman
Turk to be included in the Khutbah read in the Diu City
Mosques. Sifr Agha, on the other hand, was ready to allow
anything so long as his own power in Diu was assured. Sulai-
man Pasha intended to establish Turkish rule with himself
as head of the administration. A wreck of one of the Turk-
ish ships strewed a cargo of saddles on the Guzerat coast,
and from these the Guzeratis inferred that a sea campaign
was not the only warlike operation the Turks contemplated ;
a land campaign could only be directed against their own
or some other Muhamedan state. The fate of the Shaikh
of Aden was a warning too recent to be disregarded, and
the lawless conduct of the Janissaries who were landed on
September 5th, was the clenching proof. Ali Khan with
the forces under his command, though they did not leave
the neighbourhood of Diu, withdrew from active co-operation
in the siege. Sulaiman Pasha landed some heavy artillery
for Sifr Agha to place in position, and passed on with
the galleys to Jafirabad, on the Ranai river, to refit.
Sulaiman Pasha returned to Diu on September 24th, by
which time it had become generally known that on
September 1 ith, D. Garcia de Noronha, nephew of the
great Albuquerque, had reached Goa bar as viceroy, and
had superseded Nuno da Cunha. Nuno da Cunha, who
was never promoted to a higher rank than that of Governor,
felt deeply the slight put on him by his supersession at
NUNO DA CUNHA, GOVERNOR, 1529— 1538 259
such a critical moment by an almost untried man ; while
the other residents in India were disgusted to find that at
such a time they had to follow a man whom they did not
know and who did not know them ; subsequent events
justified their resentment. Nuno da Cunha's feelings also
were exasperated by the treatment he received from his
successor, for he was not allowed to return home in a
king's, or even in a contractor's, ship; he had to hire a
private vessel. The progress of the quarrel may be traced
in Nuno da Cunha's own letters. ' In the last of these,
written just before he left India, the varnish of politeness
even had disappeared. Some of his complaints almost rise
to dignity ; much is the mere outpouring of an angry man.
"My mother bore me," rails the veteran, "to be a great
captain, and not your lascar." ' 2
With his body enfeebled by his long service and his
mind disturbed by these annoyances, Nuno da Cunha was
seized, soon after he sailed, with an illness which, fortunately
for himself, proved fatal. By his own special orders he
was buried at sea with two chambers of a falcon tied to
his feet, and equally by his orders, the king was paid for
the two used, — the king deserved the scorn of the order.
At Terceira the ship was boarded by a royal officer with
a set of irons, and orders to bring the late governor home
in them. Failing even the body of their master, his servants
were imprisoned and not released for many months. The
belief in Nuno da Cunha's wealth had set envious tongues
wagging, and even Garcia de Noronha had not thought it
beneath him to send home a speedy vessel with information
intended to damage his predecessor's character. The king
of Portugal demeaned himself to open Nuno da Cunha's
private letters, to search the house of his widow, and to
1 Barros, IV. 10 c. 20 and 21.
2 ; ' Lascar" here means a common soldier.
2 6o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
appropriate what he found there. Nuno da Cunha was
licentious in private life, and cunning rather than able ; he
was successful in carrying out what he undertook, and yet
it is impossible to trace in any event of his time a guiding
hand. He did not create opportunities — he availed himself
of those that offered.
CHAPTER XII
D. Garcia de Noronha, Viceroy, 1538-1540.
D. ESTAVAO DA GAMA, GOVERNOR, 154O-1542
D. Garcia de Noronha — D. Garcia de Noronha, who
was selected as the third Viceroy of India, — a dignity to
which his illustrious uncle Albuquerque never attained —
was a man of 60 years of age, the grandson of an arch-
bishop of Lisbon, poor with a large family to be provided
for. He had already been in India with his uncle. To man
the 1 1 ships of his fleet extraordinary expedients were
adopted, for so scarce were men in Portugal that outlaws
had to be tempted in and prisoners released by a pardon,
general to all offenders save those against religion and the
king. Those condemned to death were sent to India in
perpetual banishment, and those condemned to imprisonment
for longer or shorter periods; there is on record the case
of one Manuel de Mendoga who had been sentenced to banish-
ment for nine years, and was allowed to keep his term
by taking his two brothers with him for three years, this
thrice three years being accounted equal to one punishment
of nine. Even by these means the force collected was of
such inferior quality that they were described as a lot of
tattered boys without beards, and men fit for nothing in
the world, who had not a sword among them. '
There had been before this time Roman Catholic Bishops
1 D. Joao de Castro made his first voyage to India in this fleet.
262 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
in India; the names of Duarte Nunes titular bishop of
Laodicea, who came out in 1 5 1 5 ; D. Diogo, who came
out in 1520; D. Martinho, in 1523, and D. Fernando
Vaqueiro, (who died at Ormuz in 1535,) in 1532, are on
record ; but in this fleet there came D. Joao d' Albuquerque,
the first Bishop of Goa, which had been made a bishopric
by a Bull of Pope Paul III, of November 3rd, 1534. He
assumed jurisdiction, not only over followers of the Romish,
but also over those of the Nestorian Church. The church
of St. Catherine was made a cathedral. On the arrival of
the new Viceroy at Goa, on September nth, he found some
seventy or eighty vessels in the harbour which had been
collected for the relief of Diu, to the siege of which we
must now return.
The fortress of Diu stands on the eastern end of the
island of that name, while the western side is occupied by
the town. On the further side of the creek that makes Diu
an island stands the suburb of Gogala, which, from the
events of Almeida's time, was known to the Portuguese as
Villa dos Rumes. Here the Portuguese had an outwork.
From a rock in mid-channel rose an isolated fort that
guarded the entrance. On the northern side of the fortress,
where alone the enemy could bring troops to bear with
effect, the two eastern bastions were known as Garcia de
Sa's (nearest the creek) and St. Thomas. The Gogala out-
work was held by a weak force of 70 or 80 men ; the
fortress and the isolated fort were held in strength. On
September 28th the Turkish galleys returned, after careening,
from Jafirabad, and passed slowly in single file, led by Yusaf
Ahmad, the second in command, their sails showing in
quarters white and red, in front of the fort, discharging
their artillery. The fortress replied, but the garrison suffered
from their own firing far more severely than from that of
the enemy; through a mistake committed when Bahadar's
D. GARCIA DE NORONHA, VICEROY, 1538— 1540 263
munitions were brought into the fort, the finer matchlock
powder had got mixed with the coarser artillery powder
and burst the guns, killing several of those serving them.
In this siege the inefficiency of the Turkish galleys was
very marked ; it is intelligible that they would not care to
attack stone walls, but they did not even keep the blockade,
and boats were continually passing to and fro.
The brunt of the first attack fell on the Gogala outwork ;
it capitulated after it had been battered into a shapeless
mass. Under the capitulations the garrison were to be
allowed to enter the fort, but after the surrender Sulaiman
coolly broke them, saying the Portuguese would be better
outside the fortress than inside where he should be sure to
kill them ; they were sent to the galleys. After the capture
of the outwork a regular summons and defiance were
exchanged; manners have altered, and the language then
thought heroic would now render the user liable to a fine
in a police court. By Oct. 4th the Turks had erected and
armed 6 batteries, at distances varying from 60 to 150
paces from the land face of the fort, and some of the guns
they mounted threw cast iron balls of 60 to 100 lbs. weight.
This powerful artillery completely mastered that of the
Portuguese.
On October 5th fire was opened on Garcia de Sa's
bastion, and it was not long before the wall was breached,
the fight raged daily over this breach during all October.
Driven to construct inner lines of defence as each wall was
in turn battered down, at the end the Portuguese only held
about a third of the original bastion, but from it they were
never dislodged. The breach was narrow, and at the foot
the defenders lighted a large fire as an extra impediment
to stormers ; some of the most noteworthy incidents of this
great defence gather round this fire. The Portuguese over
their low breast-wall kept it together with long hooks; the
264 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
enemy on their side used hooks to scatter it. Ever and
again two opposing hooks would grapple and then came
a grim struggle, either side trying to pull the other into the
flames. At the same time not a day passed but an attempt
was made to storm the breach, and often more than one;
the besieged were thus kept always on the alert by the
fresh troops the besiegers could from their numbers bring
against them.
Stories of individual adventure and heroism abound. There
is the story of Fonseca, who held the breach, fighting on
with his left hand after his right had been shattered by a
musket ball ; of Joao Gil, the small captain's boy, who
followed the huge Muhamedan into the water almost out
of his depth and who still could not reach him, and was
nonplussed until he heard his master's voice: "The point,
John, the point"; of Penteado who left the breach to get
his wound dressed by the surgeon, but finding the waiting
for his turn long, returned to the fight to be again sent
back with a severer wound; but before the surgeon even
saw him the roar of the breach again drew him, and this
third time he had to be carried with his fresh wound out
of the press ; and of the man unknown, who, in the heat
of the fight, found his bullets expended and fired a loose
tooth at the enemy rather than miss a chance of doing
him harm.
The women and children equalled the men in devotion
and excelled them in ferocity. They expended their ferocity
on unfortunate prisoners and slaves ; in their devotion,
however, they undertook all the fetching and carrying of
wood, water, earth, stones, building of walls, tending of
sick, and everything that could relieve the soldiers from all
save actual fighting, but even in the thick of the struggle
they were found carrying water and food and binding up
wounds. D. Isabel de Veigfa and Anna Fernandes, the
D. GARCIA DE NORONHA, VICEROY, 1 538— 1 540 265
wife of the surgeon, hobbling on her stick, are handed
down to us as those who organized the women. ' From
time to time small reinforcements were thrown into the
fort, but the water was bad and the garrison suffered much
from scurvy, and when the final attack was repulsed on
November 4th there were only 40 men fit for duty, but
very few serviceable arms, and the only powder available
for powder pots, the chief defensive weapon of the Portu-
guese, was that drawn from the charges of the big guns.
The protracted defence of the Portuguese had accentuated
the differences between the Turks and the Guzeratis. Owing
to their own excesses the strangers could not even get the
necessary supplies, and all attempts to enlist the sympa-
thies of the southern Muhamedan states on behalf of the Turks
had signally failed. Sulaiman Pasha withdrew his artillery,
embarked, and was out of sight on the morning of Novem-
ber 6th. At the last his movements had been accelerated
by the approach of a convoy of foists with supplies from
Goa, which his fears converted into the Viceroy's relieving
force. He left behind him 400 wounded men, and his
homeward voyage was marked by cruelties as gross as
those which stained his outward one. On the departure of
the Turks the Guzerati forces removed from the neigh-
bourhood. The relieving force was, however, only a small
body under Antonio da Silva, which was welcomed by the
garrison; but before long there began a bitter feud as to
whether the defence had driven away the enemy and thus
raised the siege, or whether that result was due to the
relieving force. Whichever view we take, this defence of
Diu ranks very high among sieges, and the people of Por-
tugal my look back on it with pride.
The news of the retreat of the Turks was received at
1 Isabel de Veiga's name appears in Barros. His grandson married her
grand-daughter.
266 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Goa with angry mutterings. By bringing in outlaws with
pardons and by raising a forced loan among the Portu-
guese, ' Garcia de Noronha had collected 180 vessels and
5,000 fighting men, but the leader had no stomach for the
fight. The rank and file were correct in their view, the
Guzerat trouble was only postponed, and a notable oppor-
tunity had been thrown away through timidity and irresolu-
tion. Antonio da Silveira, the hero of the siege, was well
received in Portugal, and the fame of his defence spread
throughout Europe. Antonio himself was at one time spoken
of as a possible Governor of India, but he was a spend-
thrift, and this reputation spoiled his chance ; he ran through
his own fortune and his wife's, and died poor.
On November 20th the Viceroy started for Diu with a
fleet of 90 sail. 2 He proceeded north at a leisurely pace,
anchoring every night, and only reached Diu in January
1539, and then with only part of his fleet, for nearly half
of the vessels had been scattered or lost in a great storm.
The ruins of the fortress were as the Turks had left them,
and the first task of the Viceroy was to rebuild the place,
which was made stronger even than before. Communications
were opened with the Sultan of Guzerat, and peace was
signed with him on March nth, 1539. :! Under its terms, a
wall of 4 cubits high was to be erected between the fortress
and the town ; the custom-house receipts were to be pooled,
and one-third 4 was to be paid to the Portuguese. Although
this peace was concluded, the relations of the Portuguese
with the Muhamedans, especially with those left behind by
1 Correa thought that in 1550, when lie wrote, the whole of the forced
loan had not been paid off, and such a loan was never attempted again. It
became complicated with the question of compensation to the masters for
the price of fighting slaves killed.
2 Joao de Castro has left a log of this voyage which was printed in 1843.
8 See treaty in Botelho Tombo, p. 229.
4 Altered to one-half in time of Estavdo da Gama. — Botelho Tombo, p. 232.
D. GARCIA DE NORONHA, VICEROY, 1538— 1540 267
the Turks, remained very bad; an extraordinary instance
is the hog-hunting story in Correa. l
All the combinations to which the Samuri had trusted
to enable him to resist the growing power of the Portu-
guese having failed, he was compelled to sue for peace,
and to get it had to yield all the points in dispute. In
exchange he was allowed to send certain merchandise on
favourable terms to Europe and receive other goods in
exchange ; but he never enjoyed the most favourable of
these stipulations — that, namely, referring to pepper, for as
it affected a royal monopoly it had to be referred to the
King of Portugal, who refused to ratify it.
During all this time matters in India had been going
from bad to worse. The Viceroy had — as he said — come
to India to get the reward of his 50 years' service. He
paid no salaries, as he expected Government servants to
live out of their offices. Everything that he could sell he
sold — offices, voyages, or pardons ; and even when he had
sold to one man he was quite ready to sell the same thing
at a higher price to the next, and not return the first his
money. All through the rains of 1539 he hardly left his
house; after the rains were over his health grew gradually
worse, yet indoors or out, ill or well, his one thought was
to make money, that, at his advanced age and in his state
of health, he could never enjoy. 2 Yet if avarice was a blot
on his character it was not the only one. One night, early
in April 1540, there was a street row in Goa and swords
were drawn, one man was slain across the Viceroy's thres-
hold. Though the actual murderer escaped, his companion,
1 Correa, IV. 89.
8 D. Christovao da Gama in a letter to the King, of Nov. 18th, 1540,
speaks in the highest terms of Joao de Castro, who kept everything straight
in spite of the "comdysao forte" of D. Garcia. See Francisco de S. Luiz
edition of Andrade's life of Joao de Castro, p. 313.
268 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
a new Christian, Francisco de Veiga, was captured. The
Viceroy's house had been desecrated; it was treason to
have struck the blow, and the man must be hanged without
process or trial. In vain the Bishop and the chief officials
pointed out the injustice and begged for a reprieve. With
his hands so feeble that his servants had to guide the pen,
the Viceroy ordered his immediate execution, and never
left gazing out of the window till he saw the man hanged
there before him. That night (April 3rd) he died. When
the successions were opened Estavao da Gama, second son
of D. Vasco da Gama, who had just returned from a term of
service as Captain of Malacca, was found to be the new
Governor.
D. Estavao da Gama. — Estavao da Gama, at the time of
his elevation a man of from 35 to 37 years of age, first
went to India with his father in 1524. He had been
Captain of Malacca for five years, during which time he
had amassed considerable wealth, and fearful lest his new
dignity should tempt slanderers to blacken his good name,
he had an inventory of his property taken by State
officials, both when he took over and when he gave over
charge of his office ; it was found that his term as Governor
had cost him Pi 2,000 from his private purse. He was a
contrast to his predecessor, physically and morally ; he was
below the middle height, the other was exceptionally tall ;
he was liberal, just and prudent, the other was the embodi-
ment of avarice and cruelty. He found the dockyards
depleted, and to carry out the royal orders to visit Suez
and burn the galleys there he had to equip a fresh fleet.
He placed the chief fortresses in a condition to repel any
sudden attack, and he determined, should the Turks not
return to India before October, to search them out in the
Red Sea.
D. ESTAVAO DA GAMA, GOVERNOR, 1 540— 1542 269
The gravest anxiety of the Governor was, however, due
to the state of Goa itself. In this year the great famine
that had been threatening the whole East for some years
reached its culminating point, and by this famine Goa,
though not in the most affected tract, suffered. On the
Coromandel coast, where it was most severe, man ate
man, and in the Portuguese settlement of Negapatam
15 or 20 dead bodies — mere skeletons — were found every
day. It is told that men and women drowned them-
selves in troops rather than any longer face the miseries
of the world. ' The famine extended even to the east
coast of the Red Sea; the Turkish galleys could not
be fitted out, and the Turks left in Aden deserted that
place for the east coast of Africa, where they assisted
the Shaikh of Zeila against the Abyssinians. Although
Goa was not in the worst part of the famine tract, still
the effects of the scarcity had been intensified by the
acts of Garcia de Noronha, who had refused or neglect-
ed to pay the government servants their salaries. It was
as a result of this famine that, in 1543, there was such
an outbreak of cholera in Goa that the tolling of the
bell was for the time discontinued, and two churches were
made parish churches to meet the extra work of the
funerals. ~
AU through 1539 the condition of Goa city had been
very bad; seven hundred of its small population died of
disease in 4 months, while robberies and murders were of
nearly daily occurrence. In 1 540 matters grew still worse.
A man taken under the Governor's protection was followed
by his adversary in a private quarrel, that had its origin
1 D. Joao de Castro's letter to D. Luis, of Oct. 30th, 1540, Investigador
Portuguez, Vol. XVI. p. 279. He estimates that two-thirds of the population
of the Vijayanagara state died.
2 See very remarkable description, Correa, IV. 288.
270 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
in a low slum of the city, and killed almost in the Gover-
nor's house. l
Gongalo Vaz Coutinho, a fidalgo of some note, was
confined with several other persons of position as great
malefactors as himself, in the Goa jail. By the help of a
slave girl of great beauty Coutinho won over a subordinate
official, and on a fixed day, when all the friends of the
prisoners were waiting outside to help, the doors were flung
open, and in broad daylight the prisoners marched down
to the water's edge. There were so many that all could
not crowd into the one boat provided, but, some inside,
some swimming beside it, all crossed to the mainland and
escaped, no one much trying to stop them. Coutinho
expected his pardon, but it never came, and he died a
renegade in the service of the Adil Shah whose troops
he commanded against his own countrymen.
One of the difficulties of dealing with this state of affairs
lay in the clan spirit of the Portuguese. If an offender
could in any way claim the protection of a fidalgo, punishment
was out of the question. An attempt of the Governor to
bring the fidalgoes to a better course of action did result
in some temporary improvement, but the feeling of clan
sympathy was too deep to be eradicated at once. Thus
in the expedition of Estavao da Gama to Suez, at a point
between Suakin and the mouth of the Gulf of Suez, where
the fleet stopped for water, two soldiers fought a duel and
one was left for dead. His adversary ran to the boat of
his captain, and this boat, accompanied by all those of his
friends, drew off and anchored some distance out to protect
the man from the consequences of his act. As the wounded
man recovered, however, the incident ended here. These
1 The murderer and a companion became pirates on the African coast.
Martim Afonso de Sousa, when he passed Mozambique, gave the companion
his pardon and took him back to India.
D. ESTAVAO DA GAMA, GOVERNOR, 1 540— 1542 271
disorders were not confined to Goa. In the rains of 1539
150 soldiers mutinied in Diu, took possession of one of
the bastions and turned its guns against their own fortress ;
until they were bribed they refused to return to their duty. '
The preparations for the Red Sea expedition continued
during the rains, and the crews were selected with unusual
care, for the Governor in person sat at the table to super-
intend the payment of advances. A fleet of 72 sail was
got ready, and its departure was preceded by a sermon
from the Bishop and by a procession to the beach. Sped
by the episcopal benediction, it started on January 1st, 1541.
Of this expedition D. Joao de Castro has left us a most
valuable log. 2 On February nth the whole fleet, save one
ship lost in crossing the Arabian Sea, arrived in safety at
Massowah, where the seaboard was held by Muhamedan
tribes, whose chief fled at the approach of the Portuguese.
A message was sent after him to supply two pilots to Suez
and pay i?5,ooo, or his country would be destroyed; but as
the Chief had not ^20 in his possession, no country to destroy,
and no pilots for Suez, the Portuguese had to be content
with two pilots for Suakin. The sea beyond Massowah was
as yet untraversed by Portuguese ships.
On February 20th Estavao da Gama, leaving the large
vessels under Manuel da Gama to await his return, started
for Suakin. When D. Christovao da Gama with the advanced
guard reached there on Feb. 22nd, he surrounded the
island, but found the town already deserted. Suakin struck
the Portuguese by its size and apparent prosperity. De
Castro considered that it equalled if it did not exceed all
other ports in the security of the harbour, the facilities for
1 *'I would have seen them dead, and the site of the fortress sown with
salt," says D. Joao de Castro. — Letter to D.Luis, October 30th, 1540, Inves-
tigador Portuguez, Vol. XVI. p. 279.
- Printed in 1833.
272 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
loading and unloading cargoes, and the natural strength of
the site. The harbour was closed all round, difficult of
access, the bottom mud, with a depth of from five to seven
fathoms, with little tide. The city covered the whole of the
island, and ships could lie all round with their bows on
shore, and be loaded or unloaded over a plank ; ! its com-
merce was with all the then known world. The Chief of
the City was a merchant, and the force necessary to keep
the peace consisted of 40 Turks paid by the traders. The
Sultan of Turkey took half the customs' dues. The Gover-
nor arrived on March 1st to find his brother attempting to
exact a ransom from the town. On the 8th, the camp to which
the townspeople had fled on the approach of the fleet was
captured without much resistance, and such was the enormous
amount of spoil that the Portuguese fell out among them-
selves. The city and ships were burned, and on March 10th,
leaving the destruction they had caused behind them, the
adventurers went on their way. The delay was fatal to the
success of the expedition, for information sent up the coast
alarmed the whole littoral and reached Suez in time to
allow a defensive force to be collected. -
Up to the end of March progress had been so slow that
it was clear that to reach Suez at all a still further selec-
tion must be made. Sixteen of the lightest vessels and two
hundred and fifty men were chosen to go on, the balance,
much to their discontent — a discontent which a speech in
the Governor's very best manner did little to allay — had
to return to Massowah. On April 14th Da Gama reached
Kosseir, described as the most miserable spot on the earth,
with no living green thing, a place that derived its sole
importance from being the nearest point on the Red Sea
1 Roteiro, p. 95.
2 They tracked two camels and some men along the shore. — Roteiro, p. 174.
D. ESTAVAO DA GAMA, GOVERNOR, 1 540— 1542 273
to the Nile ; ' here the expedition found some provisions to
replenish their stocks. Leaving on the 18th, they crossed
from Shadwan to Tor on the 21st. The town of Tor was
spared in honour of the Church and Monastery of St. Ca-
therine, both belonging to the Greek Church, whose follow-
ers then formed an important part of the population of that
coast. The Christians of Tor were singularly suspicious of
their fellow Christians the Portuguese. Fearing lest they
should attempt to carry off their most cherished possession,
the body of their saint, from Mount Sinai, they told an
elaborate tale. With much grief and emotion they related
the long persecution of the surrounding Arabs, which had
driven them four months before to carry the body of Saint
Catherine in solemn procession to Cairo, where they had
deposited it in safety. The whole tale was fiction. 2 On
their return the Portuguese did not revisit Tor, but put in
some miles to the south, and got water from shallow brackish
wells, dug on the shore. So important an event, however, was
the arrival at Tor considered, that many cavaliers sought the
honour of knighthood there, and by the special order of
Estavao da Gama it was recorded on his tombstone at
Vidigueira, as the one action of his life worthy of remem-
brance, that he had made knights at the foot of Mount Sinai.
Leaving Tor on April 22nd, Suez was sighted on April
26th. Suez at that time consisted of many ruins and some
thirty or forty straw huts; the only drinking water was
obtained from brackish wells seven miles distant. Since
the arrival of the Portuguese in India its importance as a
commercial port had almost disappeared, but the presence
1 Roteiro, p. 187. De Castro grows philosophical over it and says the
inhabitants were probably annoyed at the Portuguese for burning their
miserable hovels, and considered themselves in exile amid the riches of the
Nile valley.
~ Roteiro, p. 200.
18
274 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
there of the galleys had during recent years given the place
the appearance of some activity. When the Portuguese
advanced on April 27th they found that there were fifty
galleys drawn up on either side of a tongue of land, the
sea approach was guarded by a heavy battery, and a canal,
cut across the root of the tongue, protected them on the
land side. ' The enemy showed in such overwhelming force
that no attempt even was made to land. On April 28th,
fearing lest the Muhamedans should turn the tables on
them and attack them, the small force of Portuguese sped
down the Gulf of Suez before the north wind.
When the discomfited expedition returned to Massowah
early in June, the Governor found that matters had not been
going on well during his absence. The climate was insa-
lubrious, and among the numerous sick many had died ;
there was little food and that bad, even men with money in
their hands could buy little on that inhospitable shore.
Joao Bermudes, - the so-called Abyssinian patriarch, who
was returning after his visit to Portugal, talked glibly of
1 Roteiro, p. 214.
- The enigmatical person called Joao Bermudes deserves a mention. He
left Portugal, still a youth, in 15 15, with Lopo Soares, and entered Abyssinia
as a surgeon, in the train of D. Roderigo de Lima, in 1520. He did not
return with the embassy. He published an account of his life in 1565
(reprinted 1875), in which there are chronological difficulties. He says that
on the death of the Abuna Mark, the Emperor of Abyssinia elected him
patriarch, with all due ceremonies, and sent him by Jerusalem and Constan-
tinople to Rome; that the Turks detained him and cut off part of his tongue,
but that eventually he reached Rome, where Paul III recognised his election
and consecrated him. He reached Portugal in 1535 or 1536, and was in
this fleet. He does not appear to have been recognised as patriarch by all
the Abyssinians, and he escaped from that country in 1559, returned to Por-
tugal after trying life on St. Helena for a year, where escaped slaves prevented
his being a hermit, and died in Portugal an old man in 1570. la his old
age he had no papers to show sceptics, and his memory appears to have been
defective; but strangest of all, Joao III of Portugal, writing on March 13th,
1546, (Academy edition of Vidfl de Joao de Castro, p. 443) says that lie
knows that Bermudes is a priest, but naught of the powers he claimed to
have got from the Pope.
D. ESTAVAO DA GAMA, GOVERNOR, 1540— 1542 275
the fertility beyond the mountains and the warm welcome
the Portuguese would meet with there. The summary
hanging of five deserters did not turn the famished Portu-
guese ; they formed a body of a hundred men, well armed
and with a flag and some musical instruments ; an at-
tempt by Manuel da Gama to stop them cost him his
life. But the first night's march of the ill-found men,
ignorant of the necessaries of African travel, found them
worn out with a thirst there was nothing to quench. They
fell an easy prey to the Muhamedans, and of the whole
number only two, who escaped death by shamming it, ever
returned. This catastrophe deprived the Portuguese of a
hope, but did not reconcile them to their lot.
The condition of the Abyssinian kingdom was at this
time nearly desperate. Hostilities had continued for about
ten years between the Muhamedan chief of Zeila and
the Abyssinians, and the latter, unable to face the match-
locks of the Muhamedans, had been defeated in several
pitched battles. The Royal Family was at length driven
to the refuge of an inaccessible mountain stronghold known
as that of the Jews. Urgent calls for help were awaiting
Estavao da Gama's return to Massowah. It was determined
to land the Governor's younger brother, Christovao da
Gama, with four hundred men, to proceed to the help of
the Abyssinians, and the brothers parted for the last time
on July 7th.
Leaving out of account the enterprise and love of ad-
venture, the expedition to the Red Sea considered merely
with reference to its object of destroying the Turkish galleys,
was badly executed. As the force was too small to over-
come even a moderate resistance, the only chance of success
lay in a quick dash; the approach to Suez was, however,
advertised and delayed by sacking every town on the road.
The expedition of D. Christovao da Gama to the assistance
276 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
of the Abyssinians, forcing its way among unknown savages
and cut off from all chance of support, shows certainly
those daring qualities that led the Portuguese to discover
the sea route to India, but it also shows the defects that
brought ruin on their power. The only immediate result,
beyond extending geographical knowledge, of this raid to
Suez, for it was no more, was to cover the Red Sea with
Turkish galleys to keep out the Portuguese and to inter-
cept any help for D. Christovao da Gama.
The story of the unfortunate Abyssinian expedition may
be shortly told. Hopeless though the enterprise was from
the first, the motives that actuated those engaged in it were
at least sullied by no sordid taint. The leader had many
of the lovable qualities of his uncle, Paulo da Gama, who
died on his return from the first voyage to India. Brave
to temerity he was the first when the fight was over to
help bind up the wounds of his men. Were the work
never so hard he was always there to share the labours of
the common soldier. After his death his followers would
elect no other leader — they were still the soldiers of
Christovao da Gama, and as such they fought and conquered.
Until August 8th, 1542, he was successful in his encounters,
but on that day he was attacked by an overwhelming force.
With many of his men dead, his camp captured, a wound
in his leg and his right arm broken, escape was impossible;
he spent that night in a thicket, but was taken the next
day, tortured and killed. Nine months later (Feb. 1545)
the remnant of the expedition — 150 strong — in company
with the King of Abyssinia, attacked the Muhamedans and
routed them with the loss of their chief. As a consequence of
this victory the Abyssinians recovered their country. In January
1544 Miguel de Castanhoso, the historian of the expedition, '
1 Castanhoso's narrative has been reprinted by the Lisbon Academy, in the
Colleccao de Opuscules Reimpressos. As illustrating Portuguese judicial
D. ESTAVAO DA GAMA, GOVERNOR, 1 540— 1542 277
returned to India, and five others were carried to India
at different times by passing vessels. One of these latter,
known as Diogo Dias of the Preste, returned in 1553
to Abyssinia with a priest, sent to enquire into the desire
of the Ethiopian Christians to join the Romish Church. At
that time 93 Portuguese were still alive, settled and married
in the country.
Estavao da Gama passed Aden on July 25th, and made
for Goa before the full force of the south-west monsoon.
Some of the weaker ships bore up for the Arabian coast ;
a few vessels were lost, but the rest made Goa on August
8th. The fleet that carried Martim Afonso de Sousa, the new
Governor, left Portugal in 1541, but did not reach India
the same year. Martim Afonso de Sousa's selection was
the result of an intrigue of several months' duration, but
he was not a new man to India, as he had commanded at
sea there during several years of Nuno da Cunha's term. His
fleet had been stripped to send reinforcements to Africa,
but it is noteworthy as he brought out three Jesuits,
Francis Xavier, Father Paul of Camerino, and Mancias, a
Portuguese not yet ordained. At Mozambique where the
fleet arrived too late to cross, precautions were taken lest
news of his approach should reach India ; Alvaro d'Ataide,
the brother of Estavao da Gama, was even removed from
his ship and imprisoned.
Martim Afonso de Sousa started from Mozambique for
India in a handy ship on March 15th, 1542, leaving the
heavier vessels to follow later, and reached Goa on May
methods, it is told that Diogo de Reynoso, who brought back Castanhoso, was,
on his return, tried for going into the Red Sea against orders, and condemned /
to death. He pleaded ordination, but it was rejected for want of proof; he
then pleaded that he was under age, and it was allowed and he was pardoned.
The fact was that the condemnation was a farce to satisfy the Turks with
whom the Portuguese were trying to patch up a peace, one condition of
which was that they would not enter the Red Sea.
278 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
6th. The new Governor's conduct was extraordinary in the
extreme, — not only did he arrange for a secret arrival, but
he also, without warning, sent agents to seize all books of
accounts, and keys of treasure chests, rather as if he were
in pursuit of a fraudulent bank clerk than as if he were
a new governor taking over charge from a retiring one.
It was fortunate that Estavao da Gama was a man of
great prudence, and that the King of Portugal had, by a
special patent, provided him with the powers of a governor
to be exercised within the Castle of Panjim, or there might
have been a repetition of the scandals that had disgraced
other occasions of the change of government. Da Gama
remained in Panjim, refusing to be drawn into any discus-
sions as to Indian affairs, and refusing even to intercede for
the release of his brother Alvaro d'Ataide, who was for
no cause whatever imprisoned for several months. After
his return to Europe, as the King was offended at his
refusing to marry a wife of his choosing, he left Portugal
and lived and died unmarried in Venice. After his death
his body was removed to his old home at Vidigueira.
CHAPTER XIII
Martim Afonso de Sousa, Governor, i 542-1545.
slmao botelho, comptroller of revenue
Martini Afonso de Sousa. — In Martim Afonso de Sousa
Portuguese India had one of the worst governors that up
to that date had afflicted it. The government, if such it
could be called, became little more than an organization
for robbery. De Sousa either began with some rudimentary
ideas of justice, or, what is more probable as the orders are
isolated, adopted some from his predecessors. By the old
law, when a native of the country died without sons, even
if he had daughters all his property movable and immov-
able reverted to the King. The Governor, soon after he
reached India, ordered that in such cases the immovable
property should follow the old rule, but that the movable
should be divided among the daughters. Later, however,
thinking that he had been too liberal, he qualified this by
deciding that all movable property over £16 in value
was immovable property, which did not leave much to be
thankful for. In another order he abolished a cess " Coshi
Varado;" we are not given his second thoughts on this, but
any way the cess was not one he collected. l Rumours of
1 Khushiburd — gift to cause contentment. For the orders referred to see Ar.
Port. Or., Fasc. 5, Nos. 76, 77, 78; see also No. 799 of October 16th, 1579,
and No. 842 of July 18th, 1584— by the former of the two last orders the
cess was in a time of great need reimposed, not only in Goa, but also in
Salsette, by the latter it was finally abolished.
2 8o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
the appearance of the Turks were still current, and to some
extent affected the policy of the Governor, but during his
time, at least, they never actually came.
The first town which De Sousa attacked was Bhatkal,
belonging to the friendly power of Vijayanagara, under the
pretence that some corsairs had taken shelter there. The
townspeople offered every satisfaction, but the negotiations
dragged. There were some guards in the town, with whom
the shore-going men of the fleet had constant quarrels. At
last one of the Portuguese was killed, trying to take
violently some cloth from a shop; riots followed in which
several more Portuguese were killed, and that night the
inhabitants abandoned the place to its fate. The next
morning the Governor and his men sacked it as if it were
an enemy's town conquered in war; the very Portuguese
factor who lived there had difficulty in saving his own
property. When, however, the Governor's immediate follow-
ing began to rob the other Portuguese of that which they
had robbed, there ensued a furious fight with swords and
pikes. The Governor did his best, but though he belaboured
both sides equally with his stick and his tongue, he could
not quell the disturbance before all the property was spoiled
and wasted. The Bhatkal men took heart of grace at this
sight and returned ; the soldiers, — the original robbers, who
had now been robbed — refused to stay ; there was a dis-
graceful panic, and many of the Portuguese were killed,
and more drowned, trying to get on board the boats.
Skirmishing continued for 8 days longer till the unfortunate
townspeople had nothing more to lose. This was the treat-
ment of the town of a Hindu ally.
In his treatment of Ormuz, De Sousa perhaps considered
that he was following out a line of policy settled by his
predecessors, though he certainly improved on their methods.
At the point to which the story has been told, (1529)
MARTIM AFONSO DE SOUSA, GOVERNOR, 1 542-1 545 281
Nuno da Cunha had just raised the annual tribute to
=£•3 3,000. In the 12 years that had elapsed since that
time the King had not, as it was perhaps known that he
would not, succeeded in paying the whole demand in any
one year, and the balance against him amounted to over
,£140,000. In 1541 the unfortunate King of Ormuz had
been deported to Goa for the nominal reason that he was
out of his mind; the proof that he had given of it was
that he had tried to become acquainted with the true state
of his finances; for between his own minister and the
Captain of the fortress but little of the income reached
either himself or the King of Portugal.
Arrived at Goa the King was loud in his complaints of
the conduct of the Captain, and as these complaints were
supported by others from Ormuz itself, De Sousa despatched
his secretary to make enquiries. There was a satisfactory
sum of money to be received by the Governor, and a
satisfactory report of the Captain's conduct to be read from
the secretary. The unfortunate King had to cede the Ormuz
custom-house and all its income, and consent to receive a
pittance in return. The order embodying this is dated
February 27th, 1543. : The Portuguese made a clean sweep
of all sources of revenue, including even the local tavern
for the sale of country liquor, this last spoliation touched
the King more than all else. The tavern had been opened
at the coming of the Portuguese ; Albuquerque left one
Gaspar Pires, as an interpreter with the King, and gave
him as a source of livelihood the tavern, then worth some
£60 a year. When the tavern — still known as Gaspar's
house — got more valuable, the Kings of Ormrz gave the
interpreters their £60 a year in money and bestowed the
tavern on any person whom they designed specially to
1 Botelho, so full on all similar arrangements, is curiously silent
was he perhaps ashamed of it ? Couto, V. 9. 5, preserves it for us.
on this —
282 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
honour. It was worth, when the Portuguese took it, some
i?i,6oo a year.
The King of Ormuz certainly carried his complaint to
the King of Portugal, but the relief he received was
ludicrously inadequate. The King of Portugal's orders
entirely affected subordinates, they ruled that the houses
of his brother of Ormuz must not be forcibly occupied, that
rent must always be paid when a house was taken, and
that no demands were to be made for presents when a
private visit was paid to him. It is interesting, as showing
previous practice, that it was necessary to say that, in
future, pigs should not be allowed to wander about the
King's palace. These orders are only noteworthy as
showing that the complaints did reach the King of Portugal,
and that he is directly responsible that the evils complained
of were not redressed. ' Soon after the concession of the
custom-house had been wrung from the King, he died and
a boy was raised to the dangerous dignity ; that the King
was poisoned appears to have been notorious, but no
enquiry was made.
The Governor's next exploit ranks high even among
those of Martim Afonso de Sousa. The bewildered historians
have supposed royal orders to account for it, but those
orders have never been produced or quoted. The Conjeveram
temples stand some 40 miles inland from Madras, and were
at the time of which we are writing, in the territory of the
Raja of Vijayanagara. They were visited regularly by the
Rajas themselves, and there was a fair, partly religious and
partly mercantile, of the character common all over India,
held at the full moon of the month of August. ' Kanci,
as it is called in the sacred writings, :l is one of the 7 holy
1 Ar. Port. Or., Fasc. 5. Nbs. 81, 82, 84.
- Mure accurately at the Puranmasi of l!lia<li>n.
■" Cunjeveram is Kanci puram.
MARTIM AFONSO DE SOUSA, GOVERNOR, 1 542- 1 545 283
places of India, ranking with Benares, Mathura, Hardwar,
Ajudhya, Dwarka and Ujain. The Portuguese calculated
the attendance at the fair as 3 or 4 millions. ' This number
was perhaps exaggerated, but at that time the Muhamedans
had not penetrated to the south of India, and the attendance
was probably large, at the present day it averages half a
million. Enriched by this annual stream of pilgrims, and
endowed by the munificence of the Hindu Rajas of
Vijayanagara, the wealth of the temples, two of the largest
of which had been built only 35 years before, in 1509,
was very great.
It is possible that rumours of the wealth of these temples
had reached Portugal, it is certain that they must have
reached Martim Afonso de Sousa when he held the com-
mand on the Coromandel Coast in the time of Nuno da
Cunha, and although they were in the territory of, and
venerated by, an ally, De Sousa, in the rains of 1543,
organized an expedition to rob them. 2 As such an attack
would rouse the whole coast, preparations were made to
carry off the relics of St. Thomas, and the Portuguese, mostly
outlaws, that trafficked to the east of Cape Comorin. The
fleet which sailed early in September was scattered and
delayed by a storm, and although its destination was supposed
to be a profound secret, enough had leaked out to make
the Raja of Vijayanagara uneasy. When, therefore, the
Portuguese rounded Cape Comorin they found so large a
force collected that any attack was out of the question. As
1 Correa is nothing if not descriptive. He says he had attended the fair;
that every pilgrim had to have his head shaved. The barbers sat under some
large trees, and the heaps of hair hid them. These heaps sold for £ 200 a
year, to make false hair. The heap of money the pilgrims left soon grew as
high as 10 measures of wheat. — Correa, IV. 301.
2 Though not excusing this expedition, some explanation may possibly be
found for its conception in the order of the King of Portugal, in 1540. to
destroy all Hindu temples in the island of Goa.
284 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
a bandit who had not been glorified by success, De Sousa
returned with his force to Kayankulam.
On this coast, between Cochin and Quilon, the Portuguese
had been settled for over 40 years, and they depended
upon the goodwill of the residents for the supply of the
merchandise which was the bait that drew them to the
East. This did not prevent De Sousa from leading an
expedition to attack the temple of "Tebelicare," a few
miles inland, which local information reported to be full
of gold. There were two jangadas attached to his temple,
but one with almost all the guards had gone to the south
when the movements of the Portuguese first attracted atten-
tion. An offer of £1 2,000 down failed to turn the Governor
from his intention, and before nightfall the temple was
reached. The building was of the common design, sur-
rounded by a wall, with a few straw huts outside. The
Governor and his immediate following went inside the temple
and shut the door ; those outside the buildings passed a
miserable night enough, a prey to every imaginable horror —
the fall of a shield nearly caused a stampede. Inside, the
Governor and his friends spent the time in torturing the
Brahmins of the temple and in digging up the floor. It
was never known exactly what was found, a gold patten
worth ^50 was all that was ever shown, but as two barrels
of matchlock powder were emptied and the barrels passed
in, and as afterwards they each required eight slaves in
relays to carry them, scandalous tongues were busy. When
in the morning they started on their return journey, a Nair,
dressed with scrupulous care with all his ornaments, followed
by 10 or 12 others, flung himself on the Portuguese ranks.
It was the remaining jangada with the relatives whom he
could collect who thus tried to wipe out by their deaths
the stain upon their honour. During their retreat the Por-
tuguese were harassed by the country-people and suffered
MARTIM AFONSO DE SOUSA, GOVERNOR, 1 542 - 1 545 285
a loss of thirty killed and 150 wounded, but on the way
they sacked another temple, whence was obtained some small
amount in silver coins to distribute among the soldiery.
There was at this time another dispute in progress, out
of which the peculiar talents of the Governor enabled him
to extract more profit even than from sacking temples.
Ibrahim Adil Shah (1535 — 1 557) was at this time reigning
in Bijapur; he was personally unpopular, and Assad Khan
of Belgaum, now old and infirm, was the object of his
especial fear and dislike. Assad Khan had never lost sight
of Mir Ali, the claimant to the Bijapur throne, ' who had,
since the departure of Sulaiman Pasha, whose assistance
he had sought, been living in Guzerat. Assad Khan now
induced the Portuguese to send for Mir Ali ; the step
was an expensive one to arrange, but he kept a liberal
disbursing agent, Ruy Goncalves de Caminha, in Goa. In
view of the later discussions, it is interesting to note that
Mir Ali came on the personal promise of safety of the
Governor. The arrival of Mir Ali in Goa caused the Adil
Shahi King to send an agent to the Portuguese and to
advance himself at the head of an army against Belgaum,
the headquarters of Assad Khan.
Khwaja Shamsu-d-din was a Persian by birth, in the
employ of Assad Khan, and when the latter, feeling the
effects of age, found his troubles gathering around him, he
employed the former to buy a piece of land in Cananor,
erect on it a strongly fortified house, and convey there, as
opportunity offered, his enormous wealth. In the meantime
Mir Ali was kept in honourable captivity in Goa, and the
game of intrigue began. Adil Shah's agent opened by
pleading the long peace, alliance and even friendship that
had bound the Governors of Goa with the Bijapur dynasty.
1 See ante p. 231.
286 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Assad Khan in reply offered two millions in gold. The
Adil Shah capped this with an offer of Salsette and Bardes.
Assad Khan in whose fief they were, stirred up the local
officers to revolt and then pointed out how worthless such
a gift was. Martim Afonso de Sousa found it difficult to
decide, partly, perhaps, because, in the contemporary slang,
neither of the cows had ceased to give milk, partly because
he knew that the advice of his council was worthless —
each man speaking according to his last bribe. To put
Mir Ali in possession of the Bijapur state would have been
difficult and expensive; Assad Khan, too, was old and the
assistance of native chiefs notoriously unstable. Salsette
and Bardes, on the other hand, had long been coveted by
the Portuguese and were under any circumstances note-
worthy additions to the Goa territory.
The Adil Shah won the day, and about the time of the
final decision Assad Khan died, and Belgaum, his capital,
was sacked. Under the terms of his arrangement with the
Adil Shah, De Sousa should have sent Mir Ali to Malacca ;
he retained him, however, as a thorn in the side of Bijapur,
and the Adil Shah, in revenge, imprisoned a Portuguese envoy
and as many Portuguese as he could capture. All the wealth
of Assad Khan was in the possession of Shamsu-d-din, and
it remained for the Governor to exploit him. He had left
Belgaum before the final catastrophe and reached Sangam-
eswar on the Shastri river, north of Goa : but there he found
a blockading fleet of the Portuguese. His chief intimate in
Goa was Ruy Gongalves de Caminha, who had been the ac-
credited agent or attorney of Assad Khan. Ruy Gongalves had
been in India since 1525, but had in his 18 years' residence
never risen higher than the post he at this time held, of trea-
surer of Goa, and as such Martim Afonso de Sousa had im-
prisoned him when he took over charge as Governor, but
this was a mere passing cloud. His character by D. Joao
MARTIM AFONSO DE SOUSA, GOVERNOR, 1 542- 1 545 287
de Castro, who made him for his services at this time
Comptroller of Revenue, may be quoted. " He is very
"rich — very proud — a good man of business, well thought
"of, excellent in flaying factors and merchants, a great
"collector of the King's income and careful in expending
"it. . . A man of a bad tongue. . . ready to libel whom he
" chooses. . . I gave him this post mainly to screw money
" out of Shamsu-d-din, whose fast friend he is. . . Ruy
" Gongalves speaks ill of all and all of him." '
Such was the man whose intimacy with Shamsu-d-din
brought him into immediate notice ; he was employed by
the Governor to induce his intimate to visit Goa, and in
this he was successful ; for, except by sea, Shamsu-d-din had
no chance of reaching Cananor, and the road by sea was
blocked. In Goa Shamsu-d-din was cajoled or forced into
giving =£300,000 to the King of Portugal. The second and
last instalment of this sum was received by the Governor
in person at Cananor in March 1 544. Contemporary gossip
had it that the Governor received actually over =£600,000
from Shamsu-d-din, and kept the balance ; that he was well
paid there can be no doubt. 2 When the Adil Shah, by
the parable of two plates full of betel leaves, the one with
very few leaves on it (the amount he had got from Shamsu-d-
din), the other with very many (the amount Shamsu-d-din
had retained), showed the Governor how he had been
deceived — he said, to clear his own character, that he
had exacted only =£300,000, because Shamsu-d-din had
taken the strongest oaths to assure him that all he possess-
ed was =£350,000. The King of Portugal also thought,
apparently, that the Governor had been moderate, for he
' For more of this man's history see p. 295.
- Couto, who searched the public accounts, only found a part even of this
£300,000 credited.. He suggested that a good deal was spent in providing
cargo for a certain ship that was lost.
288 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
wrote to D. Joao de Castro on March 6th, 1546, that in this
matter the services of Martini Afonso de Sousa had been
so excellent that they deserved every recognition. " Still,"
adds the insatiable King, "it appears to me that more can
be got from that Moor, as I hear he has still a very large
sum of money." '
The services of Martim Afonso de Sousa, which the
King considered so worthy of recognition, continued, for,
when he found that Shamsu-d-din had in reality more money
than he had thought, he spared no effort to get him again
into his power, but in vain. These efforts culminated in a
double murder. The close ally of Shamsu-d-din in Cana-
nor was Abu Bakar Ali, and it was thought that if this
man were secured Shamsu-d-din must of necessity come to
terms. Abu Bakar Ali was of a very well-known Cananor
family, and his own position stood very high. He was a
near relative of that "Mamale" who had roused Albuquer-
que by calling himself King of the Laccadives. ' Although
Mamale had been rather opposed to that Governor, Bakar
Ali had been employed by him ; one of his ships had been
used at Benasterim, and he himself had been an intermedi-
ary in the peace with the Samuri, in 15 13. While Albu-
querque, however, was in the Red Sea, his services had
been most unjustly rewarded by his ill treatment by a
subordinate, s and he had consequently not much reason to
love the Portuguese. His friendship with Shamsu-d-din was
his ruin, for when Ruy Gongalves and everything else fail-
ed to draw Shamsu-d-din to Goa, Martim Afonso de Sousa
sent a relative, Bastiao de Sousa Chichorro, to capture Bakar
Ali. By appointment Bastiao de Sousa met him on the Cana-
nor beach, and engaging him in conversation, led him towards
1 Note to Andrade, Vida, p. 434.
3 The Laccadives were often called Mamale Islands by the Portuguese.
5 Castanheda, III. no.
MARTIM AFONSO DE SOUSA, GOVERNOR, 1 542- 1 545 289
an ambush. In the scuffle Bakar AH and his relative Kunji
Sufi were killed, and the Portuguese escaped with some
wounds and much discredit, to their boats. War broke
out between Cananor and the Portuguese.
This was the last effort of Martim Afonso de Sousa, but
it is convenient to end here the story of Shamsu-d-din.
D. Joao de Castro made no attempt to rob the man, but
engaged with him in an exchange of courtesies, one of the
most substantial of which was the grant to him of free passes
for his life, for all his ships to the Red Sea and other places.
He availed himself of these to become, by 1552, one of the
richest merchants on the coast. l When Diu was besieged
in 1546 he sent the Portuguese a ship-load of supplies;
when, in 1559, there was again war between Cananor and
the Portuguese he tried to arrange a peace, and when he
failed, assisted the latter. He was by this time old and
infirm and died in the same year. 2
In Diu there never had been much peace between the
residents of the city and the fortress, and in 1545 war
definitely broke out, as the Captain of the fortress
pulled down the wall separating the fort from the town,
which, under the treaty of peace, the Sultan of Guzerat
1 Botelho, letter of 1552.
2 For a very remarkable letter from Martim Afonso de Sousa to someone
unnamed, see Fr. Luis de Sousa Coutinho, Annaes de D. Joao, III., p. 413.
In this he says that both the Adil Shah and Mir Ali had so many reasons
in their favour that he was compelled to go to masses and prayers to resolve
his doubts. As the Adil Shah gave him Salsette and Bardes, £20,000 to help
equip the fleet and £6,000 for himself, he decided in his favour. Directly
after God killed Assad Khan. Then came a friend who said he could not
do better than hand over to him (the Governor) Assad Khan's treasure of
£160,000. He sent half to Portugal and kept one-tenth. This moderation
clearly astonished himself, for he says — I might have kept the whole and no
one would have been the wiser. £20,000 was to go back to the "friend,"
and the balance would pay some old debts of the King's. On p. 420 of the
same volume, however, is an entry that shows that on June 6th, 1546, De
Sousa paid in £100,000 to the King, which he had brought home, so the
account in the above letter is incorrect.
19
2 9 o THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
was entitled to erect. The other events of this term — the
religious persecutions, the debasing of the coinage, and the
deputation of Simao Botelho to examine the accounts of
the fortresses and the custom-houses, are noticed elsewhere.
In August came the news that D. Joao de Castro was on
his way to supersede Martim Afonso de Sousa. De Sousa
was unpopular at the time of his government chiefly for
his tampering with the subsistence allowance of the soldiers.
He was afterwards remembered with some affection, as he
usually paid the salary for three-quarters of the year at
least. His character can be gathered from his acts. Had
they known it, the Indians whom he robbed of their all,
might have had some consolation in feeling, that, at least,
in the opinion of a modern ecclesiastic, they were being
despoiled by one who was a thoroughly religious, good and
pious man. ! His voyage home was prosperous beyond
precedent. He left Cochin on Dec. 13th, 1545, and reached
Lisbon on June 13th, 1546.
Simao Botelho. — Next to Afonso Mexia, Simao Botelho
is the most interesting figure among the Comptrollers of
Revenue whom the Portuguese employed in the East. He
was more of a soldier than Mexia, more of a man of decision
of the executive type, and has left more writings behind
him. He did not make his mark as did the other, however,
as he had not his opportunities. Mexia was sole Comptroller
and had to deal with governors who left all in his hands;
Botelho was but one of three of equal rank. Both, how-
ever, felt alike the royal ingratitude. Mexia's history we
have traced. Botelho's honesty did not prevent the King
from accusing him of petty frauds, frauds which he dis-
proved with ease, but the mere suspicion left a sting.
1 Father Coleridge's life of St. Francis Xavier, Vol. I. pp. 110 and 132.
SIMAO BOTELHO, COMPTROLLER OF REVENUE 291
From a statement in his own third letter he appears to
have come to India in 1532; in 1536 he was Captain of
a small fort near Cranganor, garrisoned to prevent the
incursion of the Samuri ; and. as the captain of a vessel
he accompanied Estavao da Gama to the Red Sea in 1541.
The next year he went to Ceylon as factor, where, owing
to private quarrels, a strong hand was needed; and in 1543
he was sent by Martim Afonso de Sousa to reform the
Malacca custom-house. Duties had been hitherto collected
there by a system called by an apparently Malay word,
" Bullibuliao ", and, owing to the flagrant abuses that had
crept in, the commerce of Malacca was almost entirely ruined.
Goods coming from any port between the Indus and the
Ganges paid 6 p.c. ad valorem. From the Ganges to
Malacca and thence to China goods paid 25 p.c, and the
valuation was made by the Custom House officers, who were
careful that it did not err on the side of leniency. The dues
thus calculated were paid in kind, the goods taken in payment
being similarly valued by the custom-house. Owing to the
abuses of this system, merchants preferred the ports of the
neighbouring states where they could at least find some
moderation. Botelho's orders were to arrange that, in future,
all goods should pay 6 per cent ; save those from Bengal,
which should pay 8 per cent ; and those from China im-
ported by the Portuguese, which should pay 10 per cent,,
although those imported by the Chinese themselves only
paid 6 per cent. All food-stuffs were to be free.
In carrying out these orders a very curious incident
happened. The Captain of the fortress, Ruy Vaz Pereira,
considered that the proposed reforms, if they did not entirely
cut away his profits, would at least seriously diminish them,
and refused to obey the Governor's instructions. A strongly
worded order, however, from the Governor, superseding him
if he remained recalcitrant, reduced him to a sullen obedience.
292 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
There may have been a reason for this unusual vigour if
not for the original order. Martim Afonso de Sousa had a
brother, Joao Rodrigues de Sousa, who was killed at Malacca
with Paulo da Gama, brother of Estavao da Gama, in 1533.
Ten years later, when he was governor, Martim Afonso de
Sousa sent for his brother's remains to give them a pomp-
ous funeral in Goa. Even if his brother's grave had ever
been marked, it had been forgotten in the lapse of years,
and a good many Javans had been buried around the
place. When the Governor's order came, however, some
remains were dug up and removed with befitting ecclesiast-
ical pomp. The scoffing remark of Ruy Vaz would certainly
be carried to the Governor. " Sing and good luck to you
"as much as you like, my padres, but here you are
" carrying away the bones of some valiant Javan." x
The order of Martim Afonso, though obeyed by Ruy
Vaz, was the latter's death-blow, and as he lay sick Simao
Botelho collected the leading officials and read before them
a provision of the Governor, by which he was to succeed
as Captain whenever and by what ever means the office
became vacant. The dying man and the others present
acknowledged the validity of this order, and among those
who acquiesced was one Alonso Henriques de Sepulveda,
then on a China voyage, a brother of the better known
Manuel de Sousa Sepulveda. Henriques considered that
Botelho was but a mean fellow, and that had the Governor
but known that a man of his merit would be in Malacca
when the vacancy occurred he would certainly have
appointed him. The only step possible for a man of spirit,
therefore, was to act as if the Governor had done his duty,
and seize the post when it fell vacant.
Ruy Vaz died two days after the council, and in those
1 Couto, VI. 8. 12.
SIMAO BOTELHO, COMPTROLLER OF REVENUE 293
two days Botelho got some wind of Henriques' scheme.
When, therefore, the garrison turned out to bury the dead
Captain, Botelho left a trusty Magistrate, Andre Lopes,
with 20 men in the keep, and strict orders to admit no one
to the fortress. Henriques, as soon as the funeral had started,
marched to the fort with 60 men, and finding the gate
locked, demanded admittance. Lopes regretted that he was
busy making an inventory, with all the boxes open, and
that he could admit no one. When those outside tried to
batter the door down Lopes rang the alarm bell, and he
and his men fell on with their lances. At the sound of the
bell Botelho and the garrison snatched up their arms, left
the funeral to itself, and ran to the fortress. Henriques
thus surrounded had to yield, and was sent back a prisoner
to his own ship. Henriques lost heart, was afraid to go to
China and afraid to go to India; he went to the Bay of
Bengal on a trading voyage, was wrecked, and he and all
his crew perished.
In 1 545 Botelho was superseded by Garcia de Sa as
Captain of Malacca, and appointed one of the three
Comptrollers of Revenue. His duty was to make a tour of
all the royal fortresses, enquire into their income and
expenditure, and see that none of the former was misap-
propriated. It is to this deputation that we are indebted
for his valuable Tombo do Estado da India, l that was
submitted to the King on October 20th, 1554. He was
at Ormuz when Diu was besieged in 1546, and when
the season was sufficiently open he went to Diu with rein-
forcements and with, what was very much better, enough
money to pay the soldiers' arrears. He quickly, however,
lost the popularity thus acquired. D. Joao de Castro had
proclaimed free plunder for all, but Botelho appropriated
1 Published in Subsidios.
294 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
the prize money to supply the necessities of the Government,
the Governor's order, he remarked, was only intended to
draw recruits. Four of his letters to the King are extant
— a fragment of one of 1547, two of 1548 and one of
1552. He refers to one of 1 5 5 1 which does not now
exist. In his letter of 1552 he speaks of his continued
residence in India ; he had obtained the royal permission
to return, but the Viceroy would not let him go. The end
of his service was sad enough. When the new Viceroy,
D. Pedro Mascarenhas, reached Goa on September 23rd,
1 554, Botelho was ordered to get the treasure-chest on shore;
it was removed from the hold and no compensating ballast
put in its place. The rest of the cargo made the ship top-
heavy, and in a gale it was overset and sank. Botelho
felt the disgrace so keenly that he became a Dominican
and died in the monastery a few years later.
A few excerpts from his letters will give an idea of what
an honest official had to go through, and the conditions
of life in those days. At Bassein, in 1548, he found out
two men in considerable delinquencies : one, Louis Godinho,
was an ordinary thief, who was employed in the custom-
house and had been caught there overcharging merchants ;
the other, Antonio de Saa Pereira, the son of a priest
and a nun, who, it was notorious, had killed several men,
was a more determined rascal. De Saa had got a grant
of land, unculturable through salt, at an annual rent to govern-
ment of 30s. Behind this, and abutting on it, was some
good cultivated land that was let out by government at
o(?6o a year. De Saa, trading on his truculent reputation and
on the supineness of the officials, included both pieces in
his 30s grant, until Botelho interfered. The two ruffians
then joined, collected twenty of their friends and, all armed,
went to Botelho's house, and got up a riot, hoping to tempt
the latter out and seize him. Botelho was not to be caught,
SIMAO BOTELHO, COMPTROLLER OF REVENUE 295
however, and managed to have them arrested, but from the
tone of his letter he was very doubtful whether they would
ever be punished.
Another of his experiences • was still more strange, and
showed the height to which ecclesiastical influence had
reached. Diogo Bermudes, a Spaniard, and the vicar of
the Dominicans, refused him absolution because he had
reformed the Malacca custom-house at the order of one
governor and prepared new registers for Bassein at the
order of another, neither of which things the priest con-
sidered could have been rightly undertaken without the
orders of the Pope. Presumably the secular interests of
the Dominicans had been touched by Botelho's action, as
the latter got absolution from a Franciscan.
Ruy Gongalves de Caminha, who has already been men-
tioned in connection with Khwaja Shamsu-d-din, ' appears
in these letters in a bad enough light, in a story in which
Botelho himself plays no very heroic part. One Joao
Caeiro died, leaving a boy and a girl by a slave girl, both
minors, and a fortune of ^4,000 or i?5,ooo. Botelho, with
others, was the executor, and as the others renounced, all
the work fell on him. The money was left by Caeiro in
the hands of Ruy Gongalves, not at interest, but to be repaid
in full when demanded. Ruy Gongalves had a nephew,
a cripple, and a confirmed gambler, and when the boy
died and the girl was sole heiress he demanded her in
marriage for his nephew. Botelho refused his consent, but
Ruy Gongalves, while Botelho was absent from Goa, took
the law into his own hands and married the two forcibly.
Botelho dreaded the influence of Gongalves with the Gover-
nor too much to complain except privately to the King.
Among the causes of the decline of the King's revenue
1 See page 286.
296 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Botelho notices the abuse of the grants of free carriage.
A grant made to one officer was sufficient to rouse all
others of similar rank to demand similar privileges, until
King's ships sailed with nothing but cargo shipped by the
holders of free grants. It had reached such a pitch that
the King had to buy in India goods from Ormuz and
Malacca at a high rate, as his own ships brought none for
him to make up his cargoes for Europe. Some of Botelho's
instances, too, of the doings of the Captains of fortresses
are very strange: One D. Alvaro de Noronha, (son of the
Viceroy D. Garcia), Captain of Ormuz, when charged with
malpractices, replied that, if his predecessor, a Lima, could
make ten thousand pounds out of the place, he, a No-
ronha, could certainly make more — rivalry in dishonour
though not in honour. Another story is told of this same
Captain. An active official, Jeronimo Rodriguez, was sent
on to Ormuz to prepare for a coming expedition, and on
the way he discovered that a certain resident of Ormuz
was engaged in that most heinous of offences under the
Portuguese code — smuggling pepper. Arrived at Ormuz
he ordered this man's arrest, and for this the Captain call-
ed him a Jew dog, and had him led in effigy through the
town and subjected to every insult.
Beads made on the West Coast of India, at the back of
Bombay, were needed for the African trade, and under
orders from Portugal no Portuguese was allowed to purchase
them. The intention was that the King should buy these
beads directly from the producer. The Captains ofBassein
and Chaul, however, became rivals in the trade ; both fitted
out armed bands to go up country to make purchases, and
these bands nearly came to blows. The Captain of Bas-
sein won in the struggle, and the King of Portugal had to
buy the beads he wanted from him at an enhanced price.
Sixty years later we have another picture of Portuguese
SIMAO BOTELHO, COMPTROLLER OF REVENUE 297
India, drawn by Couto, the historian, in his Soldado Pra-
tico, and it is interesting to compare the two accounts.
In the later one the old evils are still present, the only
change is a growth in meanness. The Soldado Pratico is
the picture of a thoroughly vicious system worked by men
more vicious even than itself. The nearest approach to
the India it presents is a tropical forest where every ani-
mal and every insect, save those parisitical creatures that
lead a still more ignoble existence, preys on some animal
or some insect weaker than itself; but there is in the Sol-
dado no feature of force or grandeur — the tiger is absent.
The book is filled to nauseousness with petty scoundrelisms
that a healthy thief would despise.
Couto, writing in the centre of it, pleads for a change
of system. He cannot see that no change of system could
have eradicated such evils, everything from the top is
corrupt. The Governor sends an embassy to a native
potentate — he clears his stables of all the screws at the
price of the best horses to send with the envoy as a
present. He helps his friends to rob by allowing them to
buy up old state debts and old salary notes for a song,
when the rightful owners are tired of soliciting, and then
ordering payment in full. Under a royal order no governor
can be sued for any debt; a few days before he starts for
Portugal proclamations are made for claims to be brought,
but they are only made to allow certificates of his freedom
from debt to be given him. The judges from the highest
to the lowest are corrupt and sell their orders to him who
gives the most; but in doing so they followed apparently
a recognised practice, for Falcao, in reporting to the King
of Portugal in 161 2, said that he did not give the salaries
of judges and magistrates as they varied with the business
they did and what they received from the parties. ' Couto
1 Falcao, p. 136.
298 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
tells us that Captains of fortresses keep armies of dummy
soldiers that live only in the pay bills, and Captains ot
ships follow their lead; while Custom House officers value
the goods imported so low, in the hope of a share in the
consignment, that even the importers cry shame.
There was nothing new in many of these complaints.
D. Joao de Castro wrote them in full to the King six
years before he himself became governor. In 1539 he
found that, though the King paid 16,000 men, he could
only command 2,000 outside the garrisons of the fortresses.
There was in those early days perhaps a little more shame ;
thus those who bought up soldiers' paynotes were content
to buy them at from 15 to 20 per cent below their face
value, but the evil was there. Even the judges he complains
of for identical practices : all is dead in them, he says,
save their hunger. '
1 Letter of D. Joao de Castro to the King in 1539. Investigarlor Portuguez,
Vol. XVI. p. 269. Same to same, 1546, p. 406.
CHAPTER XIV
D. Joao de Castro, Governor, 1545-1548— D. Joao de
Castro, Viceroy, 1548— Garcia de Sa, Governor,
1 548-1 549— Jorge Cabral, Governor, 1 549-1 550
D. Joao de Castro. — D. Joao de Castro, who succeeded
Martim Afonso de Sousa, was born on February 27th, 1500,
and was the son of D. Alvaro de Castro. In his youth he
was the pupil of Dr. Pero Nunes, afterwards Comptroller
of Revenue in India ; at the age of eighteen — owing to a
dispute with his father — he joined the Portuguese Army in
Africa. He distinguished himself and returned home in
1527, a marked man. He married his cousin, a daughter
of Lionel Coutinho who was killed with D. Ferdinando
Coutinho, the Marshal, at Calicut in the time of Albuquerque.
During the ten years that he resided in Portugal after his
return from Africa, he lived at his country seat in Cintra,
where he was visited by the Infante D. Luis, who became
warmly attached to him and to whom some of his later
writings were addressed. 1
In 1538 he sailed in the fleet of D. Garcia de Noronha,
and on this occasion he refused the Captaincy of Ormuz
as beyond his deserts, though he accepted a pension of
£ 450 a year. His log of the voyage of D. Garcia to Diu
1 The introduction of the orange is attributed to him. The sweet orange
was certainly brought by the Portuguese to Europe in 1548. See Hehn,
Wanderings of Plants and Animals, p. 338.
300 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
contains passages of great value. 1 In 1541 he accompanied
D. Estavao da Gama to Suez, and his log of that voyage
is full of interest even at the present day. He gives what
we now know to be the true explanation of the rise of the
Nile in Egypt ; 2 while his dissertation on the origin of the
myth of the Satyrs shows the true scientific spirit. ' He
notes the direction of the wind ; the deviation of the needle ;
the presence of birds ; the effect of the wind on trees ; the
signs of rainfall ; and rarely fails to give some reasonable
explanation of a new place-name. He returned to Europe
in 1542, in a ship with many fidalgoes and few sailors; the
voyage was noteworthy as the fidalgoes and their servants
divided the work of the ship between them, and the passage
was an unusually quick one.
He was selected for the post of Governor through the
influence of the Infante D. Luis, and against the opinion
of the Indian Council ; consequently he was sent out with
an imperfectly equipped fleet, and three Comptrollers of
Revenue to supplement his supposed lack of business
capacity. He was a man subject to uncontrollable gusts
of passion that denoted an improperly balanced mind. ' His
1 His description of the caves of Elephanta is very remarkable. It contains
measurements and details rarely found in travellers of that day. This passage
should be compared on the spot by a competent observer. There are changes
wrought by time.
2 Roteiro of 1541, p. 64.
3 Roteiro of 1541, p. 87.
4 For one instance see Botelho's letters, p. 4. Some correspondence published
in the Revista Universal Lisbonense (2 series, Vol. I. p. 89) can only be ex-
plained by this defect. These letters between Aleixo de Sousa Chichorro and
D. Joao de Castro are filled with vulvar abuse. The Editor does not say
where these letters came from, and rather puts himself out of court by describing
Aleixo de Sousa, who had left with Martim Afonso de Sousa, as De Castro's
chief subordinate. Correa (IV. page 436) says there was an angry corre-
spondence between the two; Aleixo de Sousa was also specially remembered
in the death-bed memorandum dictated by De Castro to Francis Xavier and
the other priests, so there was a quarrel which De Castro remembered in
charity, and the letters may be genuine.
D. JOAO DE CASTRO, GOVERNOR, 1545— 1548 301
personal bravery and his personal purity were beyond ques-
tion, yet he was bombastic beyond even the standard of his
age and country. He delighted in imitations of Roman
triumphs with their barbarous adjuncts— walls knocked
down to admit him — captives trooped to grace his entry,
and standards theatrically dragged through the dust. His
favourite style of portrait shows his head circled by palm
leaves and a palm branch in his hand. l Other governors
were content to describe themselves in their treaties as
"the most magnificent lord," but this was insufficient for
de Castro— he is " The Lion of the Sea." 2 The antechamber
in Goa, where envoys from native potentates awaited his
pleasure, was decorated with representations of dragons,
demons and other fictitious monsters, in the hope that the
feeling of terror they induced might reduce the envoys to
the proper suppleness.
He is unfortunate both in his own biographer and in the
histories of his time. His much vaunted life by Andrade
is stilted, bombastic and untrustworthy, 3 while the histories
of his time have been tampered with. The charge is serious,
but can be substantiated. We learn from Couto ' that Cas-
tanheda completed his history in 10 books, but that, at the
request of some fidalgoes who were in the second siege of
Diu, and who were dissatisfied with the straightforward
narrative, the King of Portugal had the last two books
1 The artist appears to have selected the common "kajur" palm; it is
remarkable chiefly for its spikiness.
2 Tombo, page 39.
3 It is far more suited to tell the history of that Portuguese ship's captain
who, when he heard a soldier asking the cook for an onion, roared at him :
"Onion, what the devil do you mean? Our only luxuries here are powder
and shot," than that of a man who ever did anything worth remembering.
For some judicious remarks on the style of the book and on Andrade's
method of dealing with authorities, see the edition of D. Fr. Francisco de^
S. Luiz, p. 387.
* Couto, IV. 5. 1.
302 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
destroyed. Couto himself suffered even worse mutilation ;
his own brother-in-law, a priest, Fr. Adeodato da Trinidade,
rewrote the sixth decade that gives the history of D. Joao
de Castro's time. 1 Not only has all faith in the exact truth
of the narrative been destroyed, but the literary merits of
the history have evaporated.
De Castro's letters have unfortunately never been col-
lected. Those that have been printed are scattered up and
down different periodicals ; the history of the document is
not always given and the spelling is often modernized.
Imperfect, however, as they are, they raise our opinion of
the man. He was too big to fill his letters with scandalous
stories of his subordinates; he was always anxious to press
on the King's notice their merits and their good services.
Judging from them, he took a sound view of the political
aspect of the Portuguese rule in India and saw that its
continuance depended on a strong fleet; he looked askance
even at the territory attached to Bassein, although it brought
in a large income, because its possession involved the danger
of intanglements in the internal affairs of continental India. '
Bassein to him was merely important as a mart for the
wood required for ship-building. He saw clearly, too, how
the increase in the number of scattered fortresses was
weakening the position of the Portuguese in the East.
He left Portugal in the middle of March 1545, and with him
sailed his two sons, D. Alvaro and D. Fernandes, and also
Rais Sharfu-d-din of Ormuz, who had been in Portugal
since 1529. The halt at Mozambique was long enough to
enable him to plan a new fortress that was built in his time, :
1 Diogo Barbosa Machado s. v. Adeodato.
2 Some of his views are weighty, — thus he says that bad men canuot be
made good by regulation. The maxim was above the level of his contem-
poraries, and Portuguese India was wrecked as no one could grasp it.
8 Were Mozambique not fortified, the Turks could seriously incommode
the Portuguese by cutting their line of communication at this important point.
D. JOAO DE CASTRO, GOVERNOR, 1545— 1548 303
and to despatch Lourenco Marquez on that voyage of
exploration on the east coast of Africa that has left
his name on modern maps. De Castro reached Goa and
took over charge on September 1st. His impressions as
reflected in his letter to the King were at first favourable ; '
he thought that India was well provided, but his over-
hasty expression of opinion had afterwards to be com-
pletely withdrawn, for the territory he had to administer
had been stripped by his predecessor, and troubles of
every kind arising from that predecessor's action had to
be faced.
The debased coinage s was a grievance real enough to
the people of Goa, but it was not difficult to withdraw
the light coins, as De Castro did, and issue others of true
value. De Sousa looked on the balance of the money he
had extracted from Shamsu-d-din as the product of his
own industry, and although he left Goa with a promise to
credit a considerable sum in the Cochin treasury, his second
thoughts told him that this money in hand to present to
the King would do more than aught else to make his
reception in Portugal pleasant. De Castro had therefore
to face his difficulties with an empty treasury.
The murder of Abu Bakar at Cananor and the resulting
war were settled with little difficulty ; all desired peace at
heart, and De Castro's assurance that the whole blame
rested on his predecessor was considered sufficient. The
dispute with the Adil Shah over Mir Ali was more serious.
The original agreement had been to send Mir Ali to
Malacca, but this had not been carried out as Martini
Afonso de Sousa considered him a useful irritant. When
the Adil Shah, however, offered £17,000 to get him into
1 See Letter of 1545 to King, O Instituto of Coimbra, Vol. II. p. 101 ;
that of 1546 is in -the same volume, p. 241.
2 See p. 70.
3o 4 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
his power, De Sousa appears to have lent a ready ear;
at all events De Castro found two envoys waiting in Goa
to receive Mir Ali. De Castro's action was straightforward
and honourable. Mir Ali had come to Goa on the security
of the Governor's word and could under no circumstances
be given up. ' War did not immediately break out as a
consequence of this refusal, but the relations of the two
powers continued very strained and the Portuguese envoy
remained a prisoner of the Adil Shah.
In the dispute with the Sultan of Guzerat there was no
hope of avoiding war, although there can be no doubt but
that De Castro did not realize for some months the gravity
of the situation. It was only one of the grievances of the
Guzeratis that the Portuguese had pulled down the wall
between Diu and the fort which the Sultan had erected
under the treaty. Sultan Mahmud III, although too young
to personally remember the circumstances of the death of
his uncle, Sultan Bahadar, and too much in leading strings
to possess much power, had been educated to a desire for
revenge and to a hatred of the Portuguese name. On their
side the Portuguese, so far from trying to conciliate the
Guzeratis, almost went out of their way to exasperate them.
In 1545 the custom-house dues of Diu were farmed out
to certain Portuguese, and in the agreement with the farm-
ers the Portuguese Government included a clause which
embodied what they had always arrogated, but which the
Guzeratis had never acknowledged. All trading vessels
coming to the Guzerat coast other than those belonging
to the Portuguese must first come to Diu to pay customs,
and by a refinement of cupidity it was not sufficient that
the merchant himself went — his vessel must accompany
him. The Captain of Diu was thus enabled to buy what
1 See correspondence, Instituto of Coimbra, Vol. I. p. 327.
D. JOAO DE CASTRO, GOVERNOR, 1545— 1548 305
he pleased of the cargo at his own price. Under this rule,
which was enforced by armed vessels, all the ports of Guze-
rat, save Surat which the Portuguese themselves frequented,
were closed. The situation was of course impossible.
When in March 1546 the Captain of Diu, D. Joao Mas-
carenhas, was convinced that a siege during the monsoon
months was inevitable, the fortress was, through the cha-
racteristic improvidence of the Portuguese, almost entirely
unprovided with men or material, for in all only 200 men
could be mustered where 800 were needed. The carelessness
or the good nature of their opponent, Sifr Agha, allowed
them to get in a small stock of supplies before the siege
began, and a hasty message was sent to the Governor
begging earnestly for reinforcements of men and munitions.
At Goa, D. Joao de Castro was beset with difficulties : he
had no money, and the fleet had not been repaired and
sent to sea for some years. l With great personal exertion
he equipped six foists from Goa and two from Bassein,
and sent them under the command of his son, D. Fernandes,
to Diu. War was declared against Guzerat with all the
forms of mediaeval custom.
The Captain of Diu had in the meantime discovered
treason in the fort. One Ruy Freire, a man of Diu, had,
while in Surat, been bribed by Sifr Agha to blow up the
powder-magazine and admit the Guzerat troops by some
low balconies facing the sea. Returned to his home Freire
associated with himself a mulatto, one Francisco Rodrigues,
and the two had been some days in the fort undiscovered,
and had nearly made an opening into the vault of the
1 In his difficulties D. Joao de Castro turned to Salim Shah of Delhi and
suggested that he should attack Guzerat. The embassy did not meet with a
very favourable reception as it brought no present, but Salim Shah was too
busy at home to think of Guzerat. See Letter of July 4th, 1546, and reply,
O Instituto of Coimbra, Vol. II. p. 47.
20
306 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
powder-magazine, when the Captain got wind of the design
from a woman of light character who was married in the
fort and had connections with a Turkish soldier in the
town; this information was confirmed by that given by an
Abyssinian deserter. Mascarenhas met the difficulty with
great prudence. An open enquiry would have made the
scandal public and weakened his small force by the introduc-
tion of general distrust. The two men were sent ostensibly
on missions, the one to Goa, the other to Bassein. and not
allowed back. On a subsequent occasion Mascarenhas had
to face the same difficulty of internal treason. During a
general assault a number of the enemy were introduced
through the women's quarters, and they were only driven
out after a hard fight and with some loss to the Portuguese.
On April 1 8th, 1 546, the Guzerat forces began to collect. Sifr
Agha could at first only dispose of some 10,000 fighting
men, but he had a very powerful artillery and an unlimited
supply of forced labour. The forced labourers were unfortun-
ates who, not fighting themselves, received but scanty food
and no pay, and suffered more heavily than any other body
of men in a quarrel in which they had nothing to gain or
lose by the victory of either side. The water fort was still
an important part of the defences ; and in this siege, as
in the last, the line of fortifications of the main fort facing
the city could alone be attacked. This line contained three
bastions — St. Thomas nearest the sea, Santiago in the centre,
and St. John nearest the channel between the island and
the mainland ; these bastions were connected by curtains.
In the night of April 20th — 21st the besiegers raised formid-
able batteries, and as the water fort prevented a direct
attack on the St. John bastion, which was the weak point
of the defence, ' a ship was prepared and filled with com-
1 Its foundations projected over part of the old fort ditch, which was made
ground.
D. JOAO DE CASTRO, GOVERNOR, 1545— 1548 307
bustibles to destroy it, but the Portuguese grappled and fired
her. Owing to the failure of this attack on the water fort,
the besiegers had to confine their direct attack to the two
southern bastions, and batter that of St. John from one
side only.
During the first few days in which the batteries were
open it was necessary for the Portuguese to economize
their scanty supply of powder, and they suffered heavily
from the besiegers' fire. On May 18th the reinforcements
from Goa and Bassein under D. Fernandes reached them
and raised their fighting force to 400 men. Even after
this the Portuguese were outmatched in both artillery and
musketry fire. The machine most dreaded, however, was
a mechanical contrivance for projecting rocks, that demo-
ralized rather than injured the garrison, until relief came
through the death of the French renegade who worked it ;
for while he was skilful enough, it was said, to send 30
rocks in succession into the fort, his successor could only
discharge them backward among his own friends so that
"they sent the machine to the devil."
In June the besiegers built a high wall opposite the St.
Thomas bastion, from the top of which they discovered the
whole of the inside of the fort; and when this wall was
battered down by the garrison they opened trenches and
advanced by covered ways and zigzags to the edge of the
ditch to fill it in. For some days the Portuguese carried
off by night the earth filled in in the day, using for this pur-
pose an old door in the walls of the fort, leading into the
ditch. On June 24th Sifr Agha came in person to examine
this door, and while standing looking over a low wall his
head was carried off by a cannon ball. The death of the
commander of the besieging force gave the Portuguese a
respite for a week, until his son, Rumi Khan, was appointed
to his place ; in the end the Portuguese suffered by the
3o8 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
substitution of the son— who was their bitter enemy — for
the father, who was but half-hearted in the matter.
While the number and resolution of the besiegers in-
creased the little garrison of the fort diminished daily;
sickness, too, broke out among the latter, and hardly 200
men could be mustered to repel attack. By July 4th the
first force of the monsoon was spent, and Mascarenhas sent
the chaplain of the fort, Joao Coelho, and two sailors to
carry news of the urgent need of reinforcements. By this
time D. Joao de Castro had succeeded in getting some
vessels ready and in collecting stores and munitions, and
although Mascarenhas' letter only reached him on July 10th,
he was able on July 25th, two days before Coelho returned
to Diu, to despatch his son, D. Alvaro, with 37 foists. In
the meanwhile the difficulties of the little garrison were in-
creasing. The ditch had been filled in and both the St.
Thomas and the St. John bastions had been breached, and
a "road up which a cart could have been driven" made
to the top ; assaults on these breaches were of almost daily
occurrence. ' All the medicines were finished; the food
had been either used, or spoiled in the magazines, roofless
from the enemy's fire; cats and dogs had all been eaten,
and it was a feast day for the sick when a crow or an
adjutant was shot, feeding on the dead bodies of the slain ;
rice and coarse sugar were the only supplies left, and the
powder was nearly all expended.
On July 27th the enemy's batteries ceased firing, and
mining operations began. These operations appear to have
taken the Portuguese quite by surprise, and resulted in a
terrible disaster. The presence in the garrison of D. Fer-
nandes had not conduced to harmony. There were intri-
guers enough ready to stir up bad blood by playing the
1 It was in one of these attacks about July 23rd that the besiegers were
admitted to the fort by treachery.
D. JOAO DE CASTRO, GOVERNOR, 1 545 — 154^ 309
Governor's son off against the Captain. D. Fernandes him-
self was young and thoughtless, and the mentor provided
by his father — that Diogo de Reynoso who had brought
Castanhoso from Massowah to. Goa in 1544 — aggravated
instead of smoothing over the difficulty. The St. John
bastion stood partly on living rock and partly on made
ground, where the ditch of the old fort once was. The
besiegers were aware of this defect and laid their mine in
the made ground. D. Fernandes had charge of the defence
of this bastion, and on August 10th, by a series of feints,
he and 70 of the leading men of the garrison were drawn
to it to repel a fancied attack. When the besiegers re-
treated in perfect order and undefeated, Mascarenhas saw
that some danger lurked, and ordered the defenders to with-
draw from the bastion. D. Fernandes and his men were on
the point of obeying when some scornful words of Diogo
de Reynoso drew them back; ' the mine exploded under
their feet; D. Fernandes, Diogo de Reynoso and 46 other
men were killed and 22 wounded.
The dust of the explosion had not subsided when Joao
Coelho, the chaplain, with his cross, took his stand in the
breach and the remnants of the little garrison gathering
around the symbol of their religion, were ready to repel
the attack. Slaves ran up with beams and stones to build
a temporary defence, and that night an inner line cut off
the shattered bastion. It is not surprising that the small
remnant of the garrison — 80 strong and nearly all wound-
ed — begged to be led out to be killed in the open rather
than die one by one behind walls. The attacks on the
breaches never ceased, and the Muhamedans had by this
time got possession of all the outer walls, and were driving
the Portuguese back foot by foot. On August 13th the
1 D. Joao de Castro reported this in manly words to the King, not trying
to exculpate his son's fault. — O Instituto of Coimbra, Vol. II. page 293.
3io THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
garrison were heartened by the arrival of Antonio Moniz
Barreto and a few men who had, at the imminent risk of
their lives, crossed in a small boat from Chaul, where D.
Alvaro, whose fleet amounted then to 60 vessels, was lying
waiting for the weather to moderate to attempt the voyage.
After this date small reinforcements began to come in almost
daily, and on August 29th D. Alvaro himself arrived, to find
the fortress quite open to the besiegers, the walls and
bastions heaps of rubbish, and the little garrison defending
an inner line of fence.
With the arrival of reinforcements Mascarenhas experienced
fresh difficulties. The nerves of the new men were not at
the pitch to allow them to listen calmly to the hum of
passing bullets and to stand defending walls that at any
moment might be blown into the air with themselves. To
the raillery of the seasoned garrison they retorted that
they were not men to be cooped up behind bricks and
mortar, but that they were ready to fight the enemy in
the open. Matters went so far that the men, supported by
D. Alvaro, mutinied to be led against the enemy, and the
Captain was not strong enough to refuse. On the morning
of September 1st it rained hard and the wetted matches
of the matchlocks were of no use, but in the afternoon
the 400 men of the attacking party sallied out, under
D. Alvaro and D. Francisco de Menezes, against works at
least as strong as those of the fort itself at the commencement
of the siege — works too, defended by nearly 20,000 men.
Of course the attack failed, and the failure would have
been ludicrous if it had not been so disastrous. When
D. Francisco de Menezes was killed and it was brought
home even to the mutineers that the attack was hopeless,
D. Alvaro fled and the men concealed themselves in the
long grass at the foot of the enemy's wall until D. Joao
Mascarenhas pricked them out with his pike, then they
D. JOAO DE CASTRO, GOVERNOR, 1545— 1548 311
bolted back in a panic. This disgraceful affair cost the
Portuguese 40 killed and seventy wounded, of whom
many died.
By this time the besiegers had bridged the channel
between the mainland and the island, — a work requiring
considerable skill as the tide ran strongly. In the fort —
if fort it could still be called — matters remained unchanged.
The Guzeratis held the outer line of the fortifications, the
Portuguese the houses, and between the two was a wall
to which either side advanced at pleasure to take a shot
at his enemy. The news that reached the defenders from
the outside was not encouraging, for the Turks had occupied
Basra and their galleys had been seen at many places
on the Arabian coast. The Governor continued to pour
in supplies and men, and because the Captain had left his
fortress to make the sally of September 1st he sent Vasco
da Cunha with special orders to prevent another such
occurrence. No attempt even was made to reoccupy the
outer line of the fortifications, as all the works there were
mined. The Id of the Ramzan fell on October 10th, and
by that day there were 1,800 Portuguese in Diu with ample
supplies ; the festival passed without an attack.
In the meantime D. Joao de Castro had been collecting
reinforcements from all down the coast. On the plain near
Goa he erected, from drawings supplied by the Captain, a
copy of the enemy's works at Diu, and his soldiers were
exercised in sham fights in assaulting them. ' When all
was ready he proceeded north. The first plan had been
to hold Diu fort and to harry the Guzerat coast-line until
the Sultan was compelled to sue for peace, but this was
changed after a personal inspection by D. Joao de Castro.
The fortress was so shattered that it would require all the
1 Couto, VI. 3, 9.
312 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
dry season to repair it, and it was therefore necessary to
drive the enemy from before it at once.
The Portuguese could muster in all some 3,500 fighting
men to attack the 20,000 men besieging Diu, supported,
according to rumour, by the Sultan of Guzerat with 50,000
men in reserve : the odds were certainly enormous. On
November 6th, 1546, D. Joao de Castro appeared before Diu ;
the enemy was kept amused by feints of landing, and
during three successive nights the troops were introduced
secretly into the fort, climbing the sea face by rope ladders.
Preparations were completed by November 10th; early that
morning at the signal of three rockets from the fort, the
boats advanced with trumpets sounding, with torches, and
forests of lances stacked along the decks, with lighted matches
tied to their handles, and over all the Governor's banner
displayed. In the boats were only enough sailors to man
them; advancing and then retreating, they kept a large
part of the Guzerat army on the alert, and until the day
dawned the deceit was not discovered. Meanwhile the real
attack of the Portuguese in two battles was able to make
considerable headway against that part of the enemy that
opposed their advance from the fort. D. Joao Mascarenhas
led the van ; the Governor in person led the second battle,
and before him Antonio de Casal, the Franciscan, carried
aloft a crucifix. The men in De Castro's battle hung back,
and were only induced to advance by a rumour that the
enemy was flying. !
The first fight was at the line of batteries; Antonio de
Casal with his cross scaled the wall. A bullet broke one
of its arms — "Look," cried the brave monk, "what the
infidel dogs have done to the signal of your faith. Die
1 De Castro led them — he did not merely order them to attack. He says
they showed considerable reluctance to advance, only 25 accompanied him.
O Instituto of Coimbra, Vol. III. p. 34: De Castro's general letter of 1546.
D. JOAO DE CASTRO, GOVERNOR, 1545— 1548 3x3
for Christ 1 " With a rush the line of batteries was carried
before the troops who had been drawn off by the feint of
the boats could return. When these fresh troops rein-
forced the enemy there was a renewal of the fight, but
the Portuguese would take no denial, and with one sustained
effort the Muhamedans were forced back. So sudden was
the final sweep of fugitives that several Portuguese were
carried away in the stream, pinned and impotent of harm.
As Rumi Khan was never seen alive again he is believed
to have been among the 3,000 of the enemy killed: 600
were taken prisoners. The Portuguese acknowledged a
loss of 100 killed and 400 wounded; of these latter, as
there was no proper supply of medicines, many died. The
dead were burned, but so many corpses had been buried
in the ruins, that, after the siege, a terrible sickness swept
away 1,500 Portuguese and many natives of the country.
There was no delay in rebuilding the fort. The new
outer walls were drawn to include the former ditch, and
as the inner walls were also rebuilt there was a double
line of fortifications. Work went on night and day, and
the Governor had to disobey the direct commands of the
King of Portugal and assist fidalgoes to keep open table
for those under their orders. The Governor had no money
to pay the many who only clamoured for what was justly
due; as a last resource he sent to borrow from the
municipality of Goa, and failing any other pledge of re-
payment, sent them some hairs from his beard. ' The
Goa municipality returned the pledge and i?6,ooo, ' but as
1 See p. 168 for a similar story of Albuquerque.
2 The reply of the Goa municipality on sending the money is printed on
p. 460 of the Lisbon Academy edition of Andrade's Vida. It recapitulates
their grievances. The sum collected was 20,146 pardaos and one tanga, of
five tangas to the pardao. In view of the recent persecution of the Hindus it
details that 9,200 and odd pardaos had been lent by them. It presses fur repay-
ment, — the case of D. Garcia de Noronha's loan had not been forgotten.
3H THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
a rich ship was soon after captured the debt was not long
unliquidated. Owing to the impossibility of getting any
fidalgo to undertake the onerous charge of the captaincy
of Diu, ' D. Joao Mascarenhas had to stay on after his
term was completed. When the works were far enough
advanced to be defensible the Governor returned to Goa,
and on April 21st, 1547, made that triumphal entry into the
town that led the Queen of Portugal to say of him that
he had fought like a Christian and triumphed like a heathen. 2
The rest of the Governor's term is a monotonous history
of struggles for money to pay the troops, of petty suc-
cesses and of hollow triumphs. The Adil Shah had taken
advantage of the Governor's absence at Diu to overrun
the territories of Salsette and Bardes, which he had given
to the Portuguese on the condition that they deported
Mir Ali, whom, on the contrary, they had kept in Goa.
The leader he employed was that Gongalo Vaz Coutinho,
now a renegade, who had broken out of Goa goal in 1540.
This incursion was only supported by a force of 700 men,
and D. Joao de Castro easily defeated it in October with
his 6,000 troops ; this petty success was the occasion of
another triumphal entry into Goa city, and the hostilities
with the Adil Shah smouldered on. They came to no
conclusion during De Castro's lifetime.
The effects of the war with Guzerat were felt wherever
the Portuguese trade in the East extended. Guzerat cloths
were the articles of barter most commonly employed in
Bassein, Goa, Ormuz and Malacca, and the diminution in
the custom-house receipts from those places began to be
1 Some of the persons mentioned in De Castro's last wishes were included,
as he feared the King might forget their really meritorious services and
only remember that they had refused to go to Diu.
2 See Corea, IV. 587, for a very detailed account of this procession. The
tablet commemorating it still exists in Goa. — Fonseca, p. 227.
D. JOAO DE CASTRO, GOVERNOR, 1545— 1548 315
seriously felt by the Portuguese government ' Impecunious
though he was, D. Joao de Castro considered himself
compelled to make a vigorous attack on Sultan Mahmud
in the hope of bringing him to his knees, and in November
1547 he went north with 1,500 men; but his conduct in
thus personally taking the command of an expedition of
raiders was severely criticized by many of his leading
fidalgoes, who considered that such " birding " as they
called it, could more decently be undertaken by younger
men. At Bassein he found himself forestalled by the nephew
of the Captain of that place, who had already sacked his
objective, Broach. D. Alvaro was next detached to plunder
Surat, held by Kara Hussain, the son-in-law of Sifr Agha ;
the chicken-hearted D. Alvaro was, however, afraid to attack
the town, although, as it was afterwards discovered, the
place was entirely unprepared for defence.
When news came that Sultan Mahmud had, on hearing
of the approach of D. Joao de Castro, marched with his
army and was encamped near Broach, the Governor, who
had been gasconading in the then approved manner, by
forging spits on which to roast his opponent, sailed for that
place, but when the enemy showed himself in great strength
the Portuguese declined an engagement and retreated. a
The story of the harrying of towns already plundered, and
of the nameless cruelties practised on defenceless men and
women, need not be detailed. 3 The Governor did not dare
to go to Diu where the complaints of the soldiers that
1 Albuquerque saw the necessity for Guzerat cloths, and therefore kept
peace with the country. — Cartas, p. 51.
2 Couto in his VI. 5. 7 gives a curious picture of the Portuguese army
on this occasion ; its head, the Governor, was full of indecision and ready to
accept the advice of the last speaker.
3 Correa tells us that they found little but the old cooking-pots, and in
one place two whale ribs which the Governor carried back with him to Goa
and erected across a street, where they lasted for ten years.
316 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
they received no pay were too true to be faced by an
impecunious governor eager to reward good service and
unable now even to meet just demands. The Governor of
India, he tells the King, has not even the five loaves and
the two small fishes to divide among 5,000 applicants, " nor
are their merits such that our Lord should work a miracle
for them." J
After a hasty visit to Goa at the end of the year the
Governor again sailed northward, with an easier mind as a
way of meeting a part of his difficulties had been found.
Luis Falcao had been Captain of Ormuz and had left that
fortress wealthy, but with unusually heavy charges of mis-
conduct hanging over his head. Hoping that, if he advanced
some of the arrears of the soldiers' pay, a more favourable
view of his delinquencies would be taken, he offered him-
self for the Captaincy of Diu and his offer was accepted;
his advance of one quarter's arrears was a temporary
alleviation. The soldiers could, however, get no more pay
from the Governor; he would not transfer them as he could
get none to fill their places ; while the savagery of the
Portuguese themselves had reduced Diu to a solitude; no
ship ever came into the deserted harbour. Luiz Falcao
was hi this same year, killed while sitting in his room in the
fortress, and it was not discovered who fired the fatal shot. 2
By 1547 the town of Aden had wearied of the Turkish
rule established by Sulaiman, the eunuch, in 1538; and a
neighbouring Arab chieftain, Ali bin Sulaiman, with little
difficulty expelled the small Turkish garrison. Fearing that
the Turks would return in overwhelming numbers, Ali
applied to the Portuguese, and the Captain of Ormuz, who
1 O Institute of Coimbra, Vol. III. p. 87.
- A mulatto confessed on his death-bed some years after, that he had tired
the shot. In a crowded garrison there must have been several who knew
the secret.
D. JOAO DE CASTRO, GOVERNOR, 1545— 1548 317
received the message, sent D. Payo de Noronha, a near
relative both of the Viceroy D. Garcia de Noronha and of
the Governor D. Joao de Castro, with a small force to his
help. When D. Payo reached Aden he was well received, and
it was agreed that while Ali bin Sulaiman marched out to
attack the Turks, D. Payo should remain in charge both of
the city and of the former's children. The first night of his
stay, however, he was so alarmed at the noises he heard
in the town, which he took to mean that treason was
intended, that he never slept on shore again. When Ali
was defeated and killed and the Turks came to besiege
Aden, D. Payo de Noronha slipped away in the night. '
Meanwhile, when the Governor heard of the original
message from Aden, he prepared a fleet to take advantage
of the opening. He had no money, and rather than embark
without their arrears of pay the Bassein garrison mutinied
and marched with fife and drum to the lodgings where he
lay ill. The revolt was quieted with soft words, and no
one was better or worse for the mutiny except the un-
fortunate drummer, whose hands were cut off. With some
help from the fidalgoes D. Alvaro and 300 men were at
length sent to Aden, but they reached there six days after
the Turks had reoccupied it and D. Payo had left. As D.
Alvaro had not force enough to attack the Turks he returned
to Shahr, where, near the town, there was a small fort of
sun-dried bricks, held by 35 Arabs, who offered to surrender.
Some victims were necessary : the miserable mud fort was
1 His pusillanimity was a scorn among the Portuguese, and some years
after, a certain fidalgo, passing his door, saw a little girl weeping bitterly.
She told him D. Payo's servants had taken her hen and would neither return
it nor pay for it. u Keep quiet, little girl," said the fidalgo; "do not worry
yourself. If they had taken Aden they would restore it, but a hen — never."
He, however, after his return to Portugal, was rewarded with the Captaincy
of Cananor for life, and sailed for India in 1558. In Cananor he again
imperilled his country's interests, and brought on a war that lasted until his
recall in 1565.
318 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
attacked, and with a great expenditure of powder and with
the loss of 40 Portuguese killed, the garrison was put to
the sword. The trophies of the fight consisted of an old
man and an old woman, whom the Arabs had sent out
from the fort to arrange their surrender and whom the
Portuguese had not killed, and with these to grace his
entry D. Alvaro had his triumph in Goa in April 1548; but
the failure of the expedition was the Governor's death-blow. '
Since the death of his son, D. Fernandes, troubles had
gathered fast round D. Joao de Castro. He left Bassein in
April, 1548, ill with fever, and in Goa, so far from shaking off
the sickness, he grew rapidly worse. When he could not
any longer attend to business, he made over his duties to
a council of the Captain of Goa, the Bishop, the Chancellor
and Ruy Gongalves de Caminha, one of the Comptrollers
of Revenue. On May 23rd came a quick sailing ship from
Portugal with the news that, as a recompense for his ser-
vices at Diu, D. Joao de Castro had been created Viceroy
with a three years' extension of his term. The dying man
was past both joy and sorrow, and on June 5th the end
came. He died of a disease, says Faria y Sousa, that now
kills no man, for even diseases die — it was grief for the
miserable state India was reduced to without any means
of redressing it. - When the successions were opened it
was found that the new Governor was Garcia de Sa.
1 It is said that the Bishop of Goa, D. Joao d'Albuquerque, had a priest
in whose wit he delighted. The following dialogue between them — even if it
never took place — at least expressed the general sentiment. Says the Bishop :
"What is that which from bitter became sweet — from large, small — and from
small, large?" Said the priest: u That which from bitter became sweet were the
almonds with which the Governor was bombarded when he returned from
Diu. From large became small — the capture of Broach, because 1). Jorge de
Menezes took it. From small became large — the capture of Shahr, because
the Governor's son took it." Couto, VI. 6, 6.
2 Y matole un genero de enfermedad que oy no mata algun hombre como
succedio mil vezes en la antiquedad porque se vea que tambien las eufermdades
GARCIA DE SA, GOVERNOR, 1548— 1 549 319
Garcia de Sa. — Garcia de Sa had come out originally
to India with Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1 5 1 8, and had
been Captain both of Malacca and of Bassein, but it was
noted, as an example of rare disinterestedness, that in all
his service he had accumulated only £ 10,000. He had
distinguished himself during the first rebuilding of Diu fort,
and had subsequently been the victim of a gross royal
outrage that passed even the wide bounds within which
those outrages were condoned. There came an order while
he was Captain of Bassein, to confiscate all his property
and send him a prisoner in irons to Portugal. On enquiry
it turned out that he had, for the general convenience, caused
some small copper coins to be struck while at Malacca,
and that this had been represented by scandalmongers and
accepted by the royal wisdom as an infringement of the
royal prerogative. His friends in India stood by him and
the order was never carried out. His love of coining had,
however, not left him in consequence of this misfortune,
for, during the short time he was governor, he brought out
a new gold piece, the San Thome, which was equivalent
to about one pound sterling; and although the coin met
with some opposition at first, it was found to be convenient,
and was current for many years. He owed his nomination
to the strong recommendations of D. Joao de Castro.
Garcia de Sa was over 70 years of age : he had married
on her death-bed a woman, a native of the country, by whom
he had had two daughters, who were married while he was
governor. Both were famous for their beauty, and one,
D. Leonor, for her misfortunes. The latter married Manuel
de Sousa Sepulveda and perished with him in that ship-
wreck which is one of the most pathetic incidents of the
mueren. Esta era ua penetrante sentimiento del miserable estado en que via
la India sin ver algun camino de reparar la. — Faria y Sousa, Tom. II. pt.
2, chap. 7.
320 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Indo-Portuguese history of the time. The Governor's long
experience in the Indian administration supplied the place
of bodily activity, and he devoted his attention to the routine
work of his office. The change of rulers proved fortunate
for the Portuguese in their relations with other powers. The
Adil Shah sent his envoy, Muatabar Khan, to Goa, and
on August 28th, 1548, a peace very favourable to them
was concluded. ' They got all they wanted, including the
cession of Salsette and Bardes, and the return of their im-
prisoned envoy, and in exchange had only to promise that
before allowing Mir Ali to leave Goa they would give
notice to the Adil Shah. The peace with Guzerat was
signed in January 1 549, and the terms of the former treaty
were re-enacted, except that no wall was to be built between
the city and the town.
In the ships of 1548 there had come out a number of
men called soldiers who were little fitted to raise the
reputation of their nation in the East. None had received
any pay on their voyage out, and they could claim none
for a year after their arrival. With no means of their own,
therefore, and no power to earn their living, they were
driven to beg in bands in the streets. The Governor did
what he could; he had four tables, both for dinner and
supper ; and he fed 200 at each meal ; but the famished
wretches fought at his very tables for the food, and on
one occasion there was a riot in which swords were drawn.
The Raja of Tanur, a subordinate of the Samuri, had
for many years been trying to throw off his suzerain's yoke.
He began in 1531, when he sold the site of the Chaliyam
fort to Nuno da Cunha for ^300. He had apparently not
reaped all the result he hoped from this step, and his next
was to express a desire to become a Christian, which at
1 Botelho Tonibo, p. II.
JORGE CABRAL, GOVERNOR, 1549— 15 50 321
least showed that he was sufficiently advanced to read the
signs of the times. This subject had been first mooted
in 1545, during the term of D. Joao de Castro, but he was
suspicious, as the Raja expressed his desire for the con-
version to be kept secret, and he sent Diogo de Borba to
Chaliyam to discover what the real intention of the Raja
was; on the priest's report that the conversion was only a
pretext to get some help in his quarrel with the Samuri
over some territory, the matter was not proceeded with.
Having failed with one governor was no bar to succeeding
with the next, and the fresh attempt of the Raja was more
fortunate. Antonio Gomez, l the Jesuit, was sent to teach
him the true doctrine. The Raja left his capital secretly,
came to Goa, was received there with royal honours and
was admitted with great pomp into the Roman Catholic
Church. His zeal was fervent, and he ordered his subjects
to become Christians under pain of being turned out of
the Kingdom; twenty days were allowed for the great
change. It was well, perhaps, they did not obey, for his own
conversion was not lasting. Even on his way to Goa he
had retained all the social habits of a high-caste Hindu,
and in the following year, at the summons of the Samuri,
he collected his troops and appeared in the field against
his friends the Portuguese. In the rains of 1549 Garcia de
Sa had a return of an old malady, and died on July 6th,
1549. The new governor was Jorge Cabral.
Jorge Cabral. — Jorge Cabral had been in India since
1525, and, like his predecessor, had been captain of both
the fortresses of Malacca and Bassein. He had married
and brought out to India a Portuguese lady, and was the
first governor who had his wife with him in Goa. It was
1 For the history of. this man, the Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier may
be consulted; see especially Vol. II. pp. 55 and 398.
21
322 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
owing, in fact, to her influence that he accepted the
post, as his own inclination was to retain the solid advant-
ages of the Bassein captaincy in preference to the more
problematical ones of the governorship, which might be
lost in a month by the arrival of D. Joao de Castro's
successor.
Correa, who had seen all the governors of India except
Almeida, considered that Cabral was the best man of
business of all ; but judging from the letters of Botelho, he
seems to have been an official of the type then common,
though it is true that the acts of which he was guilty were
not so much for his own benefit as for that of his wife
and her relatives. Cabral himself had to contend with the
same difficulties as the other governors who had been
promoted by the successions ; the fidalgoes refused to follow
with any enthusiasm a man who was merely one of them-
selves. The interest of the earlier months of his term
centred in the preparations to meet the Turkish galleys
that rumour said were gathering in the Red Sea, and it
was not until August 1550 that definite news came that,
although these preparations had been in progress, they
were for a time definitely stopped.
The interest of the end of Cabral's term lies in the
acute phase which the chronic rivalry between the Samuri
and the Raja of Cochin had reached. The earlier govern-
ors had with great wisdom secured the adhesion of the
small southern Malabar chiefs, in whose country pepper
grew, or through whose country it reached the sea, by
small annual payments. Five chiefs, for instance, received
V72 a year, and one £42. ' The policy of these payments
1 Botelho Tombo, p. 25, gives their names as follows: £72 each, (1)
Pepper King, (2) King of Porcat (Porakkat), (3) King of Dianpur (Udiam
pura), (4) Lambeea of Perun, (5) Manguate Caimal ; and £42 a year,
Manguate Casta da Lua.
JORGE CABRAL, GOVERNOR, 1549— 15 50 323
was shown when the Samuri wished to extend his influ-
ence over the south of Malabar by the ceremony at
Eddapalli , but after, however, this intention had been frus-
trated, Martim Afonso de Sousa, who was in command
of the forces acting at Cochin, retrenched these allow-
ances.
Disputes between the Raja of Cochin and the other
southern Malabar States began as early as 1541, and
although the latter professed their devotion to the Portu-
guese, the Portuguese had to support their old ally of
Cochin against them. The chief who most unreservedly
joined the Samuri was called by them indifferently the
Pepper King, or the Arel of Bardela. Bardela is an
island south of Cochin, and appears in modern maps as
Warradhula. Had the Captain of Cochin, Francisco da
Silva, been a diplomat the dispute could have been easily
settled in the rains of 1550, for the Raja of Cochin was very
averse to war, and the Arel offered to refer the dispute
to the arbitration of the captain himself. Da Silva, how-
ever, refused anything except complete submission, and as
this was not accepted he landed. Technically, perhaps, the
troops of the Arel were defeated, as the Arel was killed
and his palace burned ; but, on the other hand, Da Silva
himself was killed. The followers of the dead Arel devoted
themselves to avenging their chief and caused terrible de-
struction even in Cochin town itself, while the other Malabar
chieftains definitely joined the Samuri.
On receipt of the news of the Arel's death the Samuri
collected his forces and marched south. He was headed
off by the Captain of Cranganor and a small force at the
great Trichur lake, but he evaded him by a detour under
the Ghats. On his arrival among the southern Malabar
States, 18 chiefs joined him, raising his forces to a nominal
total of 140,000 men. Of these about 40,000 occupied
;,2 4 THE. RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Warradhula, and the remainder stayed on the mainland.
Manuel de Sousa Sepulveda, in command of the Portu-
guese forces, took advantage of this faulty disposition to
cut the army in two with his fleet. The Governor followed
with a large force to attack the island, but just as he
was ready his army melted away. The new Viceroy who
was to oust Jorge Cabral had arrived at Cochin, and
the fidalgoes deserted the latter to worship at the rising
sun of D. Afonso de Noronha. No further fighting took
place, and for some years the disturbed state of the country
prevented the Portuguese getting their annual supply of
pepper. In November D. Afonso de Noronha took over
charge of India. An event had occurred in Cochin during
the term of Jorge Cabral, which may be partly attributed to
the ecclesiastical influence to which he was very subservient.
There was a temple near that town particularly venerated
by the Raja, and hearing that it contained a large amount
of treasure, Cabral had arranged to rob it; he desisted at
the earnest request of the Raja, but shortly after he left,
the crime was committed by his subordinate, and from this
time the Raja of Cochin also was estranged from the
Portuguese.
With the conclusion of the terms of Garcia de Sa and
Jorge Cabral, who carried on the duties after the death of
D. Joao de Castro, this history has reached the point destined
for its conclusion. D. Joao de Castro was the last man with
any pretensions to superiority who held office in the early
days of the Portuguese connection with India, and the
names of his successors for many generations, some in-
dolent, some corrupt, some both, and all superstitious, are
but the mile-stones that mark the progress along the dismal
path of degeneration. The symptoms of decay are, it is true,
plainly discernible from the date of Albuquerque's death,
but amid the disappearance of both public and private
JORGE CABRAL, GOVERNOR, 1549 — 1550 325
morality the Portuguese race retained for some years a
vigour which enabled it to triumph over the weaker peoples
of the East. The task of an historian of the "The Rise of
the Portuguese Power in India" has been concluded when
the date on which even that vigour vanished, has been
reached.
APPENDIX
Malacca — The Moluccas— China
Malacca. — For many years after Albuquerque captured
Malacca its history was one of continual unrest; he had
left the country unsubdued, and the conduct of the Portu-
guese who remained in the fort he built helped to keep
alive the feeling of hatred with which they were regarded.
After the decapitation of Utimute Raja his party was still
powerful, and his son-in-law, whom the Portuguese called
Patequatir, became its leader. The son of the ex-Raja of
Malacca, too, had a considerable following, and Laksamana,
his admiral, who was absent when Albuquerque conquered the
town, returned with his fleet to his assistance. The Portu-
guese had only 253 men fit for duty and held their own
with difficulty until the arrival of reinforcements enabled
them to carry the war into the enemy's camp. In the end
Patequatir was driven to Java, and the son of the ex-Raja '
and the Laksamana left the immediate neighbourhood of
Malacca and stockaded themselves strongly in the island
of Bintam, whence they could deal shrewd blows by address
as well as by strength. A dependant of the Raja of Bintam,
a Bengal Muhamedan, appeared in Malacca as a fugitive
from Bintam, wormed himself into the confidence of the
officials by his eagerness to trade, and seizing an oppor-
tunity when the garrison was supine, all but gained pos-
session of the fort.
1 This man is fur clearness called the Raja of Bintam In this Appendix.
MALACCA 327
A blow still more bitter followed. Albuquerque had
appointed a Hindu, Ninachetty, to the post of Bendara or
native governor of the town ; the appointment was in
every way unsuitable as the man could, from his nationality
and religion, be only popular with a very small number
the townspeople. The friction at length became unbearable,
and he poisoned himself. The then Captain, Jorge d' Albu-
querque, a near relative of the great Governor, made a
most suitable appointment — that of the son-in-law of the
Raja of Bintam, and therefore a Muhamedan — to the vacant
post, and for a short time prosperity was restored to Ma-
lacca. The success of the new governor was his ruin, for
his father-in-law, the Raja of Bintam, spread the report
that he was his partizan and only biding his time to destroy
the Portuguese. The device was shallow, but successful,
and the new governor, condemned by the Portuguese, ex-
piated on the scaffold his efforts in their interest. Such a
flagrant injustice was the death-blow to the reviving pro-
sperity — the returning merchants fled from the accursed
town, and the fort again suffered all the horrors of famine.
Jorge d'Albuquerque endeavoured to atone for his error
by favouring the hitherto proscribed Malays and restoring
to them their property. Among those who under these
circumstances returned were a number of so-called royal
slaves, both indoor and outdoor, whose position under
the native rulers was rather privileged than onerous. For
a time these slaves were well treated, but Jorge de Brito
who succeeded as Captain, threw all into confusion by
dividing up both classes among the Portuguese residents
as their private slaves. He also opened an enquiry at
which anyone could pay off an old grudge by producing
two witnesses to prove that his enemy was a slave, while
another enquiry reopened all the titles on which property
was held. To add to the confusion there was, on De
328 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Brito's death, a dispute as to the succession to the Captaincy ;
one claimant imprisoned the other, and the Raja of Bintam
took advantage of the general uproar to stockade himself
on the Muar river, at the very gates of Malacca.
Hearing of these events, Lopo Soares deputed his nephew,
D. Aleixo de Menezes, to the relief of the fort, which he
reached on June 18th, 15 17, to find it nearly at its last effort.
The Raja had cut off its supplies, the nominal Captain was
on his death-bed, and the factions into which the Portuguese
were divided only awaited his death to again fly at each
other's throats. Beyond relieving the immediate necessities
of the place, D. Aleixo did little. Everyone agreed that
the Raja of Bintam ought to be driven from the Muar river,
but as to details they disagreed. Don Aleixo could not
leave his fleet, the Captain of the fort could not leave his
fort, so in December D. Aleixo returned to India.
Through the greater part of 15 19 famine pressed the
town sorely, but better times were approaching. Antonio
Correa ' who had been saved from the massacre at Calicut
in 1500, had left India on a voyage to open up trade with
Pegu. He swore his treaty of peace with the king of that
country on an old song book, partly because it was the
most imposing-looking volume he had, and partly because,
as he cynically remarked, neither side intended to keep
the treaty longer than was necessary. He left Pegu for
Malacca in June 1520, and on July 15th, with a force of
150 Portuguese and 250 natives, he stormed the Raja's
stronghold, to which the advance — retarded by numerous
stockades — lay up a river so narrow that the trees met
overhead. The Raja had again to take refuge in Bintam.
On April 25th, 1521, Jorge d'Albuquerque left Cochin
for a second term as Captain of Malacca. He was headstrong
1 For his subsequent service see p. 193.
MALACCA 329
and incompetent ; the stronghold on Bintam had never been
reconnoitred, yet Albuquerque led his large force to
attack it and was of course defeated. As a consequence,
the Raja of Bintam again established himself on the Muar
river, and an attempt to dislodge him in April 1523 was
defeated with a loss of 65 Portuguese killed. Isolated ships
of the Portuguese were from time to time captured, and in
1524 one was taken less than a mile from the fort and
every Portuguese in her slain. As a result, the 80 men
in the fort were closely invested by their persistent enemy,
led by a renegade Portuguese.
At the time of the first capture of Malacca the chief
powers in the north of Sumatra were Pasai and Pedir. In
the time that had elapsed since that date Achin had risen
at their expense. The fort which the Portuguese built at
Pasai in 1521 was lost with its stores and artillery almost
immediately on its completion, and in the same year an
event occurred which gave a definite bent, hostile to the
Portuguese, to the Achinese policy. The brothers Jorge
de Brito and Antonio de Brito ' touched at Achin on their
outward voyage to the Moluccas, and found there some
shipwrecked Portuguese under a leader, Joao de Borba.
These men had been most kindly treated by the Achinese,
and they repaid it by telling the De Britos of a temple
some miles inland worth the sacking. Jorge de Brito
started with 200 men to plunder it, but he was attacked
and killed with 70 of his men.
While things were going so badly at Malacca, and when,
in fact, just half the little garrison of 80 men had been
killed in a sudden attack, came the news that Achin had
definitely joined Bintam against them. In spite of some
reinforcements, the new Captain, Pero Mascarenhas, was not
1 They were not ■ related to the Jorge de Brito who died as Captain of
Malacca.
330 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
at first more successful than his predecessors. When, however,
news came that he had by the successions been appointed
governor he collected all the forces he could muster, and
on October 23rd started to attack Bintam. The information
as to the stronghold was this time complete ; it lay 1 2 miles up
a winding creek, navigable only at high water and defended
by stockades that allowed only the passage of one boat at
a time. The position was carried after 12 days' continuous
fighting, and the death of the Raja soon after deprived the
Portuguese of a determined enemy. His son, the Raja of
Ujantana, on the mainland, carried on the feud for a few
years longer and Achin remained irreconcilable, still for
some years Malacca had some rest.
By 1533 the Raja of Ujantana had formed alliances with
Pahang and some other Malay States, and this alliance
Paulo da Gama set himself by dint of sheer hard fighting
to dissolve. In the following year Paulo was relieved of
the Captaincy by his brother Estavao da Gama, and 8 days
later was killed in a disastrous skirmish with the Ujantana
flotilla. The skilful arrangements of Estavao da Gama,
however, detached Ujantana from the alliance, and for some
years, except for the Achin war, Malacca had peace.
In 1535 occurred the famous defence of his ship by Fran-
cisco de Barros. He and Henrique Mendez, each in his
ship, were returning to Malacca from a cruise ; they were
at anchor when the enemy's fleet of 24 double-banked
row-boats with 2,500 men was sighted. De Barros, as his
mainsail and part of his crew were on shore, could not
leave, but Mendez got under way, and the first fighting,
which commenced about 3 in the afternoon, fell on his
ship. When, however, the Captain received a poisoned blow-
pipe dart in his beard, he was laid out in his cabin as
dying and his vessel bore up and left her comrade. 1 )e
Barros had 16 men to defend his ship, and by eleven that
THE MOLUCCAS 331
night only three of them were left alive ; the survivors
still fought on, and the enemy, not daring to board again,
lay round, firing sullenly. When Mendez found that he was
not dead he returned, and at his coming the enemy decamped.
The Moluccas. — In November 1 5 1 1 , after he had occupied
Malacca, Albuquerque sent 3 ships to explore the route to the
Moluccas or Spice Islands, Antonio d'Abreu was the Com-
mander, and Francisco Serrao, the friend of Magalhaens,
was the next senior officer. ' D'Abreu only got as far as
Amboina. Serrao was wrecked on an uninhabited and rarely
visited island, where soon after a native boat fortunately
arrived ; he and his companions lay in ambush near the
landing-place, got between the new-comers and their boat,
and compelled them to accept their terms, which included
taking them to the Spice Islands. In the constant wars
between Tidor and Ternate, Serrao and his companions
fought on the side of the latter and acquired a reputation
that ensured them a cordial welcome on that island. The
Portuguese expedition of 15 14 reached the Moluccas, but
though his companions returned to Europe, Serrao remained,
sending by the returning ships full accounts of the islands
to his friend Magalhaens.
When he received these letters Magalhaens had already
left Portugal for Spain, and knowing that the Spaniards had
had for some years doubts as to the exact position of the
line of demarcation laid down by the Pope, he was able
1 Albuquerque's letter of August 20th, 15 12, Cartas, p. 68, gives the composi-
tion of the fleet. At the end of Barbosa's Description of East Africa and
Malabar, published by the Hakluyt Society, is a translation from the Spanish
of an unverified paper professing to give the narrative of Serrao's voyage
of 1 5 12 to the Moluccas in a carvel which he stole in Malacca. This narra-
tive is inaccurate, and in it, apparently, his later adventures have become
confused. Serrao commanded the St. Catherine, and Simao Afonso the carvel.
The Moluccas are Ternate, Tidor. Mortir, Makian and Bachian.
332 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
to give them valuable information as to the resources of the
Spice Islands. From some orders issued to the first Portuguese
viceroy, Francisco d' Almeida, on April 6th, 1 506, ' it
appears that at that early date the Spaniards were consider-
ing whether even Malacca were not within their boundary.
Having been forestalled there, they were the more ready to
appoint Magalhaens to the command of that expedition to
the Moluccas which was to immortalize his name by the
first circumnavigation of the world. At the end of October
1 52 1 the remnants of this expedition whose commander
had been killed, reached Tidor from the East; Serrao had
died at Ternate but a short time before their arrival, about
the same date that his friend Magalhaens was killed. The
Spaniards, leaving a few representatives behind, sailed
again in December.
These Spaniards were still in Tidor when Antonio de
Brito reached Ternate on June 24th, 1522, where the
Portuguese began at once to build a fort that was only
completed at the cost of much sickness and suffering. The
rivalry between the Spaniards and the Portuguese added
fuel to the chronic war between Ternate and Tidor, and
De Brito made matters still worse by offering a piece of
cloth for the head of every Tidor islander brought in.
A peace between the two islands was concluded in 1524,
but the Portuguese considered it contrary to their interests ;
they poisoned the King of Tidor, and in the confusion
burned his capital. When therefore a fresh expedition
which had left Spain in 1525 reached Tidor they were
received with open arms. The Spaniards, 300 in number,
fortified themselves, and in December 1526 repulsed an
attack of the Portuguese.
On August 22nd, 1526, a new Portuguese commander,
1 An. Mar. e Col., Series 4, p. 112.
THE MOLUCCAS 333
D. Jorge de Menezes, who had distinguished himself in the
action in which Diogo Fernandes de Beja was killed, left
Malacca. He took a new route to the Moluccas by the
north of Borneo, in which island he touched at the capital
of a Malay State, Brunei. ' Menezes desired to make
friends with the chief, and after his arrival at the Moluccas
he sent a messenger with presents, among which was a
piece of tapestry with life-sized figures representing the
marriage of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry VIII,
with Catherine of Aragon. The chief, seeing this in his
room, believed that the figures were enchanted and
that they would come to life at night and kill him to
secure the Brunei State ; the tapestry was removed and the
messenger expelled. To return to De Menezes' voyage —
after leaving Brunei he spent some time on the New Guinea
coast, the first visit of the Portuguese to that island, and
reached the Moluccas at the end of May 1527. D. Jorge
de Menezes received charge of the Ternate fort without
much difficulty from his predecessor, D. Garcia de Henri-
ques, but directly after the two fell out over some carpen-
ters whom both wanted. D. Jorge put the other in irons,
and when D. Garcia was released he in turn put D. Jorge
in irons, spiked the fort guns, and got clear off with the
men and ships he wanted. A speedy boat reached Banda
before he did, and enlisted the help of some Portuguese;
when D. Garcia arrived there there was some fighting,
one of his ships was taken, but he escaped with the others,
He met with a hostile reception everywhere, and while he
was waiting in doubt outside Cochin, his ships were sunk
in a storm and he lost everything. He returned to Portu-
gal a pauper and a prisoner.
As the number of Spaniards in Tidor was reduced by
1 Hence the present name of the island.
334 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
disease to 40 they were no match for the force De Mene-
zes could bring against them. About the end of 1528
they capitulated : some were sent to India, and the rest
were deported to a neighbouring island ' on the promise
not to return to the Moluccas. Relieved from the fear of
external enemies, D. Jorge could indulge unrestrained in
his more brutal passions. The King of Ternate was
poisoned, and his successor, a youth, was kept a close
prisoner lest he should form a nucleus for resistance. One
morning a China pig, much valued by its owner, the Captain,
was found killed, and suspecting a near relative of the
imprisoned king, a man of great religious reputation, De
Menezes threw him into prison. A revolt of the whole
population was only prevented by a release of the prisoner,
but as he left, his face was smeared with bacon fat by
the Captain's servant. ' The news of this outrage spread
at once over the island, and all intercourse with the garri-
son ceased. The condition of the Portuguese grew rapidly
worse; owing to their ferocity no one would trade with
them, and they had no money to buy supplies ; while raid-
ing parties treated the island as conquered territory and
met with resistance. The ruffian De Menezes seized three
headmen of a village where some Portuguese had been
well beaten, cut off the hands of two and sent them back
mutilated to the village. The fate of the third was worse ;
with his hands tied behind him he was thrown out alive
to be worried to death by two savage dogs. Shortly after
the regent, to whom the Portuguese owed everything, turned
against them, was captured and beheaded, and the inhabit-
ants left the island in a body. In February 1532 De
Menezes was sent a prisoner to Portugal, when banishment
1 Camafo is given as the name.
- A complaint to De Jorge produced the brutal jest that lie should cer-
tainly punish his servant fer spoiling a good piece of bacon.
THE MOLUCCAS 335
to the Brazils was all the punishment he received. His
successor, Gongalo Pereira, had reached Ternate in October
of the previous year, and soon found himself in fresh
troubles, though he showed his desire to be just by releas-
ing the unfortunate king.
It was only the baser sort of Portuguese who wandered
as far as the Moluccas, and they were not attracted by
their pay, irregularly received. There was no trade, save
that in cloves, by which they could enrich themselves, and
the constant attempts to make this a royal monopoly were
steadily resisted, the more so as it was known that it was
not the king who would be benefited by such a monopoly,
but some snugly berthed official who never risked his neck.
Pereira was ruined by this question. Not content with
issuing the royal proclamation, he seized the stores of cloves
in private houses, and burnt publicly all weights and weighing
machines, save one at the house of the King of Ternate
and another at the Portuguese factory. The order enraged
equally the natives who were debarred from benefiting by
competition, and the Portuguese who were deprived of their
livelihood. Owing to a conspiracy headed by Artur Lopes,
chaplain of the fort, the captain was murdered on May 17th,
1532, and no one could be found to investigate the murder
or even bury the body.
The mutineers made one Vicente d'Afonseca captain,
but his new dignity was full of perils ; he constantly wore
a coat of mail, he never spoke to anyone except with his
eyes fixed on him and his hand on his sword, and he never
received anything, except from his own servants, save with
his left hand, to leave his sword arm tree. In October 1533
he was released from this position by the arrival of a new
captain, Tristao d'Ataide, but he was never punished for
his participation in the mutiny. Ataide could only
emulate — he could not surpass — the exploits of his prede-
3.36 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
cessors. He affected to believe that the king was in a
conspiracy to murder him, and got up a sham dispute
between two Portuguese, whom he imprisoned. At his
suggestion the king and his mother were induced to come
to the fort to beg for mercy for the Portuguese, and when
they came they were captured. A bastard was next raised
to the throne, to the despair of his mother, who committed
suicide on receipt of the dreadful news of his elevation.
The king whom the Captain had imprisoned was sent to
Goa, which he reached in 1536; there he became a Christian,
was declared innocent and sent back to Ternate in 1545,
but he died on the way, leaving by will his distracted
island to the King of Portugal. An appeal of the royal
family of Ternate to those of the neighbouring islands for
help, brought the pitiless reply that they were suffering no
more than they deserved for their crime in first welcoming
the Portuguese to those seas. A general league of all the
neighbouring tribes was, however, formed against the
intruders, and the excitement was such that the recently
converted Christians abandoned Christianity and reverted
to the religion of their ancestors.
On October 25 th, 1536, Antonio Galvao, the last surviving
son of Duarte Galvao who died in the Red Sea in 15 17,
reached Ternate, ' and his administration forms the one
bright spot in the gloomy history of the connection of the
Portuguese with the Moluccas. He was so far outwitted by
the cunning of his predecessor that the latter carried away
with him a large part of his garrison. He lost a portion of
the remainder by his fidelity in obeying the King's order.
One Joao Mascarenhas came with a permit to load cloves,
and, to get the help of the Captain, Galvao was given a
1 For his conduct on his outward voyage see Castanheda, Bk. 8, ch. 64.
The same author's account of his administration of the Moluccas is almost
idyllic, Bk. 8, c. 199.
THE MOLUCCAS 337
share in the venture. Galvao at once refused to avail
himself of this grant, but enforced the rest of the royal
order. Mascarenhas was all but killed by the enraged Por-
tuguese and had to remain in • concealment on board his
ship, and the stowing of the cargo was only effected by
the personal exertions of Galvao. When this was complete,
Galvao, hearing that a number of the Portuguese had
determined to leave Ternate in Mascarenhas' vessel, sent a
magistrate with his rod to warn the latter not to take away
the garrison with him. Mascarenhas, thinking the man was
coming to arrest him, kept him at a distance with matchlock
bullets. The harassed official broke his rod, the order was
not delivered, and Galvao lost a good part of his force.
In spite of the desertions, Galvao broke up the league
of the natives against the Portuguese by dint of sheer hard
fighting ; ' he then won over his defeated opponents by his
justice. He used indifferently whatever weapon came to
his hands. One expedition was led by a priest, Fernao
Vinaigre, who, after defeating the enemy with carnal
weapons, converted him with spiritual. One of his most
popular acts was allowing the King of Ternate to marry,
for no King had received this permission since the Portu-
guese had come to the country. Mindanao had been
discovered in 1536, and an expedition which Galvao sent
out under Francisco de Castro added materially to the
knowledge of the Philippines. Galvao returned to Portugal
poor because he would not enrich himself at the expense
of the King, and died in neglect, after passing his last
seventeen years in an almshouse, leaving only his debts
and his voluminous writings behind him. 2 It was said of
1 When it was necessary to sound for an anchorage close under a fort of
the enemy, Galvao personally undertook the work rather than make over the
perilous duty to a subordinate.
" A translation of one of his books, called Discoveries of the World, was
published by the Hakluyt Society in 1863.
22
338 THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
him that he was never made haughty by his success in
the Moluccas, or soured by his neglect in Portugal.
The only other event of much importance in the Spice
Islands was the arrival of another Spanish expedition, under
the command of Ruy Lopes de Villa Lobas, in 1542, which
suffered terribly from hunger and disease. The troops
sent from India on receipt of the news of their arrival
reached Ternate in November 1545. The Spaniards could
not resist the superior force, and surrendered on the promise
that they should be sent to India. Their Captain died
shortly after.
China. — The Portuguese were from early days determined
to discover China. In the sailing orders of Diogo Lopes
de Sequiera, dated February 13th, 1508,' he is directed to
enquire all about the "Chins," whether they were Christians
and whether they were a powerful people. Sequiera seems
to have seen their ships at Malacca, but Albuquerque was
the first brought actually much into contact with them.
He was able to do them some slight service, and in return
they lent their boats to help land the Portuguese for the
attack on Malacca, and when they left took an envoy,
Duarte Fernandes, to Siam, whither they were bound. At
the first meeting then all went well, and the first voyage
also, of which we have any record, was equally successful.
Fernao Pires d'Andrade first left Malacca on August 12th,
1 5 1 6, but the season was too far advanced and he had to
return and make a fresh start in June 15 17. He reached
the mouth of the Canton river with 8 ships on August
1 5th, but, delayed on one pretext or another, did not reach
the city until September. He carried a messenger to the
Emperor of China, one Thome Pires, an apothecary by
1 An. Mar. e Col., Series 4, p. 479.
CHINA 339
trade, who had been sent to India to collect drugs. It was
more than two years, however, before Thome Pires could
get permission to make the journey to Pekin. Fernao
Pires left on his return with a very rich cargo in September
1 5 1 8 ; his stay had not, owing to his discretion, been
marked by any unpleasant incident. This expedition did
not penetrate much further than Canton ; one of the ships
sailed to explore the Lew Chews, but failing to make good
her passage, returned to the mainland at Fuhkien, where
her traffic was as successful as that of her sister ships in
Canton.
In August 1 5 19 Simao d'Andrade, brother of Fernao
Pires, made another voyage to Canton. He found Thome
Pires still awaiting permission to travel to Pekin, — a per-
mission which arrived finally in January 1520. Simao d'An-
drade was a pompous braggart, he built a small fort and
erected a gallows, and used the latter to hang one of his
sailors — all acts which scandalized the Chinese feelings of
sovereignty. He tried to prevent any ships of other nations
getting cargo before his own, and he and his officers out-
raged the Chinese by freely buying boys and girls who, as
it turned out, had been kidnapped. To crown all, on the
death of the Emperor of China, Simao refused to leave the
port when ordered. Several Portuguese were killed in the
streets of Canton, and although at the end of June 1521
they were successful in a naval skirmish, they had to leave
on September 8th, 1 521, fighting their way out to sea.
Matters were left hopelessly embroiled, and every vessel
reaching Chinese shores with a Portuguese on board was
confiscated.
These events reacted on the unfortunate Thome Pires.
He reached Pekin, after a year's journey, in January
1 52 1, but his reception was not encouraging. The news of
the capture of Malacca, over which, through Siam, the
34P THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA
Chinese claimed some shadowy influence, and of the earlier
proceedings of Simao d'Andrade at Canton, had preceded
him. l He was treated as a spy and refused even the privi-
lege granted to other envoys, who were allowed to kneel
and bow five times to the wall of the palace behind which
the Emperor was said to be living. He was sent back to
Canton with orders that he was to be imprisoned until
Malacca was restored, and there after a few years he died.
The profits of the China voyage were, however, so great
that the temptations to make it were irresistible. The Por-
tuguese vessels were accustomed to lie off the coast near
Fuhkien, and the barter was conducted at sea. In 1542
three Portuguese started from Siam on this voyage. They were
caught in a typhoon off the Chinese coast and blown out
of their reckonings. After several days they found them-
selves in an unknown country, where they were kindly
treated and allowed to trade. This was the first visit to
Japan made by Europeans. '
1 His letters from the King of Portugal, as translated into Chinese, con-
tained a request to the Emperor to grant the Kings of the Franks his seal,
that is, make him his vassal.
' The history of the intercourse of the Portuguese with China and Japan
increases in interest after the date chosen for the termination of this work.
INDEX
INDEX
Abdu-r-Rahman, 109.
Abdu-r-Razak, 26.
Abraham, Rabbi, 54.
Abreu, Antonio d', 143, 331.
Abu Bakar Ali, 288, 289, 303.
Abyssinia, 8, 9, 39, 54, 78, 151, 152,
l8l, 211, 269, 275—277.
Achin, 329, 330.
Aden, 6, 54, 154, 157, 165, 172, 173,
180, 182, 183, 186, 190, 227, 254,
256—258, 269, 277, 316, 317.
Adil Shah, 58, 75; Yusaf dies, 133;
Ismail succeeds, 134—136, 138,
146, 147,151,187, 188, 231 ; Ismail's
death 232; Ibrahim succeeds, 231,
232, 270, 285—287, 303, 304, 314,
320; Mulu 231.
Adil Shahi kingdom, 9.
Adventurers, European, in East, 56.
Afonseca, Vincente d', 335.
Afonso, Mestre, Albuquerque's sur-
geon, 58, 59.
Afonso, Mestre, surgeon of D. Fr.
Coutinho, 55.
Africa, 1, 4, 16, 17, 31, 211, 235, 277,
299, 3°3-
Agha Muhamad, 192, 194, 195, 200.
Agra, 26, 238.
Aguiar Jorge d', 123, 125.
Ahmad Marakkar, 252.
Ahmadabad, 239.
Ahmadnagar, 9.
Aiyaz, Malik, 28, 56, 116; at Chaul
fight, 117, 118; negotiates with
Almeida 125 ; Albuquerque visits,
157, 192, 194, 199; death of, 200.
212, 224.
Ajudhya, 283.
Akbar, The Emperor, 207.
Alau-d-din Bahmani, 9.
Albao, Bonadjuto d', 56, 86.
Albuquerque, Alfonso d', 2, 13, 16;
relations with king, 18-20, 22;
indents for arms, 37 and 38, 43,
46, S3> 55> 56 ; relations with eccle-
siastics, 58 and 59, 69, 70, 73, 75 ;
sails for India in 1503, 96 and 97,
106; sails for India in 1506, 112;
visits Madagascar, 113; wounded
at Socotra, 114; starts for Ormuz,
115, 117; operations at Ormuz,
118— 121; visits Socotra and re-
turns to Ormuz, 122; proceeds
to India and difficulties there,
123—125; receives charge of
the government, 126; his term
as governor 128—178; defeated
at Calicut, 129— 131; efforts to
repair defeat, 131; attacks Goa,
133 and 134; driven from Goa
135; hardships while waiting
to cross the bar, 136, 137;
sails again to attack Goa, 138;
storm of Goa, 139; imprisons
344
INDEX
Diogo Mendes, 140; starts for
Malacca, 141 ; storm of Malacca,
142 and 143; arrangements in
Malacca, 144 ; returns to Cochin,
145 ; intrigues against, in India, 145
and 146 ; starts to relieve Goa, 148;
defeats forces ofthe Adil Shah, 149
and 150; mutilates deserters, 151; j
embassies to him, 151 and 152; j
starts for Red Sea, 153; defeated j
at Aden, 154; enters Red Sea,
155; terrible time at Kamaran,
156; returns to Goa, 157; has
Samuri poisoned, 158; corre-
spondence with King about Goa,
158', starts to convert Raja of
Cochin, 159; domestic policy,
160; reasons for visiting Ormuz,
161; arrives there, 162; murders
Rais Hamid, 163; presses for-
ward work, 164; leaves Ormuz,
165; death, 166; his character,
167—169; his policy, 169, 179,
180, 181, 186, 190, 191, 192, 194,
200, 202, 204, 207, 208, 2IO, 211,
231, 240, 258, 261, 281, 288, 326,
327, 33 1 . 33%-
Albuquerque, Francisco d', 96, 97.
Albuquerque, Goncalo d', 167.
Albuquerque, I). Joao d', first Bishop
of Goa, 262, 318.
Albuquerque, Jorge d', 191, 193, 327,
328, 329-
Albuquerque, Pero d', 160, 165.
Alcacova, Fernao, 69, 188, 189.
Aleppo, 6, 55.
Alexander VI, Pope, 17.
Alexandria, 6—8, 54, 56, 1 16, 184, 256.
Ali bin Sulaiman, 316, 317.
Ali Ibrahim, 196.
Ali Ibrahim Marakkar, 252, 253.
Ali Khan, 254, 255, 258.
Ali, Khwaja, 100.
Aljubarotta, Battle of, 15.
Almeida, D. Francisco d\ 22, 28, 43,
56, 58 ; his term as Viceroy 1 04—
127; reaches Anjadiva and inter-
views with Timoja, 105 ; builds
Cochin fort, no; determines to
avenge his son's death, 118; starts
for Diu, 124; defeats the Egyp-
tian fleet, 125; his treatment of
Albuquerque, 126; his death, 127,
128,. 133, 169, 170, 240, 262, 322,
332-
Almeida, D. Lourenco d', 28, 37, 39,
93 ; accompanies his father to
India, 104 ; visits Ceylon and meets
Varthema at Cananor, 108; re-
fuses to help his allies, no; reliev-
es Cananor fort, in; at attack
on Malabar ships, 115; his fight
at Chaul, 117 ; his death, 118, 122.
Alvarez, Francisco, 185.
Amboina, 331.
Amin Hussain, 247.
Amir ibn Abdu-1-Wahab, 9.
Amr ibn Daud, Shaikh, 256.
Amrjan, Mir, Captain of Aden. De-
feats Albuquerque, 154; offers
Aden to Lopo Soares, 182; killed
in Sulaiman Pasha's sack, 257.
Andrade, Fernao Pires d'. His suc-
cessful voyage to China, 338, 339
Andrade, Jacinto Freire d', biogra
pher of D. Joao de Castro, 30
61, 62; his untrustworthiness, 301
Andrade, Simao d'. Delight at Albu
querque's death, 181 ; his disas
trous voyage to China, 339, 340
Anjadiva Islands, 75, 81, 90, 104
105, 107.
Ankas Khan, 187.
Antonio, Piero, 37, 109.
Arabia, 2, 9, 10, 132, 251.
Arabs, 1—3, 8, 50, 51, 55, 78, 84,
109, 114.
Araujo, Ruy d', 132, 142, 143.
.\rel, The, of Porakkat, 207, 213.
Arel, The, of Bardela, 323.
INDEX
345
Armour, Malabar, 34.
Armour, Portuguese, 41.
Arms and methods of warfare,
33—4L
Arrow, Significance of, 249.
Ascension Island, Discovery of, 115,
Ashrafi, Value of, 69.
Asit Khan, the Tiger of the World,
247, 249.
Assad Khan. His history, 231, 232;
incites Portuguese to support Mir
Ali, 285; his death, 286.
Ataide, Alexander d', 56, 163.
Ataide, D. Alvaro d', 76, 277, 278.
Ataide, D. Luis d', 70, 71.
Ataide, Tristao d', 336.
Atar, Khwaja, Ormuz minister, 118,
121, 151, 161.
B
Babel Mandeb, 155, 190.
Bahadar, Sultan, of Guzerat. Suc-
ceeds to throne, 224, 228, 235;
offers Bassein to Portuguese, 236 ;
his dispute with Humayun, 237;
defeated by Humayun, 238; his
difficulties, 239; gives Portuguese
a fort in Diu, 240, 242 ; regains
Guzerat without Portuguese help,
243; his drinking habits, 244, 245,
246; visits Nuno da Cunha, 247,
248; murdered, 249, 250, 251, 255,
256, 262, 304.
Bahau-d-din, 223.
Bahrein, 161, 193, 223.
Bairam, Khwaja, 120.
Baltazar, 83.
Banda, 74, 333.
Banished men, 75.
Baradceus, Jacob, Bishop of Edessa,
114.
Barava, 113, 114.
Barbosa, Duarte, 88, 159.
Barbosa, Goncalo Gil, 88.
Barcelona, 54.
Bardes, 231, 232, 286, 314, 320.
Barid Shahi, 9.
Barreto, Antonio Moniz, 310.
Barreto, Francisco, 46, 71.
Barros, Francisco de, 330.
Barros, Joao de, 17, 21.
Bartolo, 230.
Basra, 6, 311.
Bassein, 41, 64, 236, 243, 294—296,
302, 305— 307, 314, 315, 317—319,
321.
Bastions of Diu, when built, 242;
in first siege, 262; in second
siege, 306.
Bayazid II, Sultan, 17.
Bazaruco, Value of, 68.
Beja, Diogo Fernandes de. Takes
Albuquerque from Ormuz to Goa,
165 ; commands on Guzerat coast
192—194; killed atChaul, 195,333.
Belgaum, 231, 285, 286.
Benares, 283.
Benasterim, 148, 208, 288.
Bengal, 11, 74, 173, 232, 233, 291.
Bengal, Bay of, 7, 52.
Berar, 9.
Berbera, 84, 186.
Bermudes, Diogo, 295.
Bermudes, Joao, Patriarch of Abys-
sinia, 274.
Bernaldes, Damiao, 52.
Bhatkal, 280.
Bidar, 9.
Bijapur, 9, 231, 286.
Bintam Island and Raja, 326—330.
Boarding-nets, 41.
Bocarro, Antonio, 75.
Bombay, 225, 296.
Borba, Diogo de, 60, 63, 321.
Borba, Joao de, 329.
Borgia, Alexander, 21.
Borneo, ^^.
Botelho, Diogo, 240, 241.
346
INDEX
Botelho, Manuel de, 45.
Botelho, Simao, 13 ; his opinion on
trend of affairs, 64, 65 ; his history,
290 and 291; reforms Malacca
custom house, 291 and 292 ; de-
puted to examine the accounts,
293; extracts from his letters,
294 — 296, 322.
Boyador, Cape, 15.
Braganga, D. Constantine de, 70.
Brahmins, 11, 29, 36.
Braz, Fernao, 147.
j Brazil, 25, 335; discovery of, 84.
[ Brito, Antonio de, 193, 329, 332.
Brito, Jorge de, Captain of Malacca,
327, 328.
Brito, Jorge de, ship's captain, 193,
329-
Brito, Lourengo de, Captain of
Cananor, no, in.
Broach, 228, 243, 315.
Brunei, 333.
Budgrook, see Bazaruco.
Burmans, 141, 143.
Cabral, Jorge, 20 ; term as governor,
321—324.
Cabral, Pedro Alvarez, 30, 31, 39,
44, 75 ; his voyage to India, 83—
88; his sailing orders, 83; visits
the Samuri, 84; his bad health,
85; the riot in Calicut, 86; kills
boatmen and bombards the town,
87 ; visits Cochin ibid, ; runs from
Cochin, 88; great importance of
voyage, ibid.; rejected for com-
mand of fleet of 1502, 90, 98.
Caeiro, Joao, 295.
Cairo, 6-8, 53—56, 116, 256. 273.
Calcoen quoted, 91.
Caldeira, Fernao, 186, 187.
Calicare, 45.
Calicut, 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 19, 26, 27,
3o, 31. 32, 37, 4i, 47, 54. 78-83,
87, 88, 90, 92, 98, 101, 107, 109,
in, 125, 128, 129, 131, 137, 193,
204, 206, 207, 208, 252, 253, 328.
Cambay, 9, 57.
Caminha, Ruy Concalves de, 62,
285-288, 295, 318.
Cananor, 10, 49, 54, 59, 83, 88, 93, 96,
104, 107, 108, in, 112, 115, 123,
124, 126, 138, 153, 168, 172, 208,
2IO, 285, 287, 288, 2.S(), 303.
Cananor, Raja of, 59, 93, m, 158.
Canhameira, 252.
Cannon, Early, 37, 39, 100.
Canton, 339, 340.
Casal, Antonio de, Franciscan, 312.
Castanheda, Fernao Lopez de, 143,
221, 225, 301.
Castanhoso, Miguel de, 276, 309.
Castello Branco, D. Pedro de, 253.
Castro, D. Alvaro de, father of D.
Joao de Castro, 299.
Castro, D. Alvaro de, son of D.
Joao de Castro. Accompanies his
father to India, 302; commands
reliefs for Diu, 308; his sortie
defeated, 310; fails at Surat, 315;
fails at Aden, 317 ; captures mud-
fort and triumphs, 318.
Castro, D. Fernandes de, son of D.
Joao de Castro, 41 ; accompanies
his father to India, 302 ; sent with
reliefs to Diu, 305 ; reaches DM,307;
causes difficulties, 308; disobeys
orders and is blown up, 309, 318.
Castro, Fernando de, Franciscan, 45.
Castro, Francisco, ship's captain. 337.
Castro, D. Joao de, 30; his position
in religious revival 61—63; re-
forms coinage, 70, 168; accom-
panies l ). Garcia de Noronha, 261 ;
his log of the voyage to Diu, 266;
INDEX
347
his log of the voyage to the Red
Sea, 271, 287, 288; treatment of
Shamsu-d-din, 289, 290, 293, 298
his term as governor, 299—318
his character, 300 and 301 ; un
fortunate in his biographer, 301
his letters, 302 ; early difficulties
303 and 304 ; sends relief to Diu
305 and 308; his preparations, 311
battle of Diu, 312 and 313; bor
rows from Goa municipality, 313
triumphs, 314; Guzerat war con
tinues, 315 ; attempt on Aden, 317
becomes Viceroy and dies, 318,
319, 321, 322, 324.
Catanho, Duarte, 254, 255.
Ceylon, 37, 45, 74, 108, 189, 190,
204, 252, 291.
Chakiria, 232.
Chaliyam, 229, 320, 321.
Champaner, 238, 239.
Charles VIII of France, 16.
Chaul, 28, 39, 40, 5 2 , 6 3, H7. I22 »
i57, i9°> 194, i95, i99» 210, 239,
241, 296, 310. ^
Chichorro, Bastiao de Sousa, 288.
China, 1, 5, 57, 74, 76, i73> 291, 293,
338—340-
Chitor, 238.
Chittagong, 7, 52, 232, 233, 234.
Cholera, 100, 269.
Christians, Privileges of new, 66, 67.
Clerk, ship's captain, 48.
Clove trade, 335.
Cochin, 3, 10, n, 27, 32, 43, 45, 62,
72, 87—00, 93—99, 101, 102, 104,
109 — in, 122, 124 — 126, 128, 134,
145, 146, 148, 151, 153, 154, 158,
i59, 172, 173. i79, 182, 189, 190,
195, 205, 209, 210, 224, 240, 241,
251—253, 284, 290, 303, 323, 324,
328, 334-
Cochin, Raja of. His subordinate
position, 10, 30; loyalty to the Por-
tuguese, 95, 102, 103, 206; desires
peace, 96 ; grants arms to Pacheco,
101 ; change in ruler, 107; annoyed
at Goa, 158, 159, 229, 251, 252;
disputes with other Malabar states,
•322, 3 2 3-
Coelho, Fernao, 195.
Coelho, Joao, 308, 309.
Coelho, Nicholas, 83, 97.
Coimbra, 14.
Coinage of Goa, 67—72, 303.
Colombo, 189.
Comorin, Cape, 10, 52, 123, 214,
252, 283.
Conjeveram, 282.
Conspiracy of married men in Goa,
147.
Constantinople, 55, 256.
Copper coinage, 69.
Coromandel coast, 97, 141, 203, 205,
224, 269, 283.
Correa, Aires, 31, 32, 56, 85, 86, 193.
Correa, Aires, son of Aires Correa,
193, 194-
Correa, Antonio, son of Aires
Correa, 193, 195, 196, 328.
Correa, Antonio, of Goa, 248.
Correa, Diogo, 59.
Correa, Gaspar, 22, 143, 177, 179,
203, 212, 224, 225, 245, 253, 267,322.
Correa, Martim, 28, 29.
Cost of transport from India, 7, 8.
Council, First provincial, of Goa, 65.
Coutinho, D. Ferdinando, Marshal,
41, 126, 128 — 131, 299.
Coutinho, D. Francisco, 55, 70.
Coutinho, Goncalo Vaz, 270, 314.
Coutinho, Lionel, 299.
Coutinho, Rafael, 193.
Couto, Diogo, 30, 42, 56, 74, 76,
297, 3°i, 302.
Covilham, Pero de, 54, 55, 77.
Cranganor, 10, 97, 102, 251, 291, 323.
Cruzado, Value of, 69.
Cunha, Manuel da, 59.
Cunha, Nuno da, 52, 60, 61, 69; at
348
INDEX
attack on Socotra fort with his
father, 115, 176, 206; reaches
India, 213; his term as governor,
221—260; unfortunate voyage,
221 and 222; at Ormuz, 222 and
223; makes Goa the capital, 224;
his first expedition to Diu, 225;
Island of the dead, 226; defeated
at Diu, 228; his dispute with
Macedo, 229—231 ; his second
expedition to Diu, 235; baffled
but secures Bassein, 236; his third
visit to Diu, secures site for fort,
240; the impossibility of helping
Bahadar as agreed, 242; lays a
trap for Bahadar's Envoy, 245 ;
his fourth visit to Diu, 246; Ba-
hadar visits him, 247 ; he loses
his nerve, 248 : Bahadar murdered,
249; he appropriates his war
material, 250 ; his fifth visit to Diu,
254; supplanted by D. Garcia de
Noronha, 258; his death, 259; his
character, 260, 277, 281, 283, 320.
Cunha, Pero Vaz da, 221, 222.
Cunha, Simao da, 221, 223.
Cunha, Tristao da. Appointed Vi-
ceroy and resigns, 104; com-
mands fleet of 1506, 112; proceed-
ings at Madagascar and on East
African coast, 1 13 ; at Socotra, 114;
helps to destroy Samuri's ships,
115; discovers Ascension Island
on return voyage, ibid., 221.
Cunha, Tristao da, Islands, 113, 123.
Cunha, Vasco da, 311.
Custom-houses, 174; at Ormuz, 200;
Malacca, 291.
D
Dabul, 39, 152, 153.
Daman, 225, 251.
Damascus, 6.
Deccan, The, 152, 159.
Declaration of war, how made, 249.
Dehli, 9, 12, 26, 243.
Delgado, Joao, 160.
Delia Valle, Pietro, 43.
Deserters. Before Ormuz, 121; from
Goa, 146; their punishment, 151.
Dias, Bartholomew. Discovery of
Cape of Good Hope, 2 and 16;
accompanies Cabral, 83 ; lost, 84.
Dias, Diogo, of the Preste, 277.
Dias, Eernao, 55, 156.
Dias, Jeronimo, 61.
Dias, Ruy, 136.
Diogo, D., 262.
Diu, 9, 30, 38, 40, 41, 49, 52, 56, 116,
124, 125, 157, 177, 182, 183, 190—
195, 200, 203, 211, 212, 214, 221,
224—227, 234—236, 238, 240—247,
249—251, 253—255, 257, 258; 1st
siege, 262 — 265, 266, 271, 289, 293,
299; 2nd siege, 3 4—3i3, 3H, 315.
316, 318, 319.
Dobbo, 5.
Do far, 49.
Dominicans, 58, 59, 63, 64, 295.
Doria, 255.
Dutch, 18, 42.
Dwarka, 283.
Eddapalli, 95, 99, 100, 251, 252, 323.
Edward III of England, 15.
Egypt, Sultan of. Roused by Por-
tuguese proceedings in India, 116;
his fleet destroyed at Diu, 125;
prepares fresh fleet, 182 and 183;
defeated by Ottoman Turk, 184.
Emmanuel of Portugal, 17, 18, 109.
English, The, 18, 42.
Kuphrates, 1, 9.
INDEX
349
Falcao, Luis, 316.
Falcao, Luiz Figueredo de, 42, 65,
72, 74, 297.
Faleiro, Antonio, 48, 49, 52.
Famine in East, 269.
Fanam, Value of, 69.
Fayal, 241.
Fernandes, Anna, 264.
Fernandes, Antonio, 75.
Fernandes, Duarte, 144, 338.
Fernandes, Pero, 63.
Fernando, D., 147.
Ferreira, Simao, 235, 240, 241.
Flemings, 40.
Fonseca, 264.
Franciscans, 28, 59, 64.
Francisco, Venetian, 257.
Frangi Khan ; see Santiago, Joao de.
Freire, Ruy, 305.
Frias, Manuel de, 203.
Fuhkien, 340.
Fulad Khan, 146.
Gabriel the Pole, 56.
Galle, Point de, 108.
Galvao, Antonio, 336, 337, 338.
Galvao, Duarte. Correspondent of
Albuquerque, 174; Envoy to
Abyssinia, 181, 184; death of,
185, 336.
Galvao, Jorge. 184.
Gama, D. Christovao da, 2, 76, 78;
takes Suakin, 27 1 -his expedition to
Abyssinia and death, 275 and 276.
Gama, Estavao da, 90.
Gama, D. Estavao da, son of Vasco
da Gama, 2, 76, 176; his term
as governor, 268—278; condition
of Goa city, 269 and 270; starts
for Red Sea, 271; in Red Sea
to Suez and back, 272—274; sends
his brother to Abyssinia, 275;
returns to India, 277; to Europe, !
278, 291, 300, 330.
Gama, Manuel da, 271, 275.
Gama, Paulo da, brother of Vasco j
da Gama, 2 ; character and death, '
78, 276.
Gama, D. Paulo da, son of Vasco j
da Gama, 76, 292, 330.
Gama, D. Vasco da, 2, 18, 20, 22,
26; misconception of Indian re- I
ligion, 30; his carriage at Calicut,
31, 37, 42, 43, 45, 76; 1st voyage
of discovery, 77—82; disagree-
ment over berthing of ships, 79;
visit to Samuri, 80; dispute over
departure, 81 ; results of voyage,
82; discoveries utilized, 83; 2nd
voyage, 90—94; attacks Red Sea
ship, and burns its crew, 91 and
92 ; his cruelties at Calicut, 93 ;
returns to Portugal, 94, 109; his
term as Viceroy and death, 204
and 205, 207, 214, 241, 268.
Gaspar da India or d'Almeida,
captured, 82 ; advises visit to
Cochin, 87 ; probable death, 130.
Germans, 40.
Gil, Joao, 264.
Goa, 9, 10, 20, 30, 38, 47, 48, 56—
58, 61—64, 67—69, 71, 72, 74, 75,
106, 133—139, 146—153, I57—I59,
161, 166, 167, 172, 173, 177, 181,
186 — 188, 190, 192, 196, 197, 199,
202, 204, 205, 207 209 — 211, 222 —
225, 228, 229, 231, 232, 235, 236,
238, 239, 245, 253, 254, 258, 262,
265, 267, 269—271, 277, 28l, 285 —
288, 292, 294, 301, 303—307, 309,
3H,3I3,3I4,3l6,3l8,320,32I,336.
tfo
INDEX
Goa, Island of, 133.
Goa municipality, Rules of, 197.
Goa residents, Privileges of, 196.
Godinho, Louis, 294.
Goga, 228.
Gogala, 52, 124, 256, 262, 263.
Gomes, Joao, 187.
Gomez, Antonio, 321.
Goncalves, Ruy, 40.
Good Hope, Cape of, 1, 2, 16, 77,
123, 126.
Gores, 141.
Gour, 233, 234.
Gracia, Joao de Buono, 90, 91.
Guardafui, Cape of, 48, 153.
Guzerat, 9, 123—125, 151, 173, 191,
i93, i94, 208, 212, 224, 225, 235,
236, 238, 242, 247, 250, 254, 258,
285, 304—306, 311, 312, 314, 320,
Guzerat, Sultan of, 183, 192, 225,
266, 289, 304, 312.
H
Hadramaut, 254.
Haidari, commander of Turkish
fleet, 227.
Hamid, Rais, ofOrmuz, 161, 162, 163.
Hamid, Rais, minister of Ormuz, 223.
Hamid, Shaikh, 154.
Hardwar, 283.
Hasa, El, 193.
Hashim, Mir. Appointed to com-
mand Egyptian fleet, 116; defeats
Portuguese at Chaul, 117 and 118;
defeated at Diu, 125; fortifies
Jedda, 183; death of, 184.
Henriques, D. Garcia de, ^.
Henry VIII of England, ^.
Henry of Burgundy, Count, 14.
Henry of Portugal, Prince, 15, 16, 17.
Hindus in Goa. Temples destroyed,
60; worship prohibited, 65; disa-
bilities of, 66, 67.
Homem, Joao, 106, 107.
Honowar, 105, 138, 140.
Hospitals, cost of, 65.
Humayun, Emperor of Dehli, 236—
239. 243, 250, 251.
Ibrahim Beg, 162.
Ibrahim, Khwaja, 114.
Ibrahimi, Value of, 69.
Ikhtiar Khan, 239.
Imad Khani, 9.
Imadu-1-Mulk, 236.
Indus, The, 9.
I Infidel servants prohibited, 65.
I Inquisition, 24.
Isaac of Cairo, 250, 255.
Ishak, Malik, 212, 224.
Ismail, Shah of Persia, 55, 151, 162.
Italy, 24. _
Iwaz, Shaikh. 236, 245.
Jacobite Christianity, 114.
Jafirabad, 258, 262.
Jangada, 12, 284.
Janissaries, 256, 258.
Japan, 74, 340.
Jask, 9.
Java, 143, 169, 326.
Jebel Zukr, 155.
Jedda, 6, 7, 8, jq, 154, 156, 183, 1S4,
190, 227.
INDEX
351
Jerun, 6.
Jesuits, 23, 24, 28, 60, 61, 204.
Jews, 18, 53, 54, 56. 57, 240.
Joao III of Portugal, 204
John I of Portugal, 15.
John II of Portugal, 16, 17, 54.
Joseph, traveller, 54.
Josephus Indus, 87.
Jusarte, Martini Afonso de Mello,
• 232—234.
K
Kalhat, 49.
Kamaran Island, 155 — t 5 7 , 183, 185.
Kanci, 282.
Kansuh el Ghori, 9, 115.
Kappat, 78, 79.
Kapukad, 39.
Kara Hussain, 247, 249, 315.
Kariat, 119.
Kayan Kulam, 284.
Khema, Ras el, 48.
Khuda Bakhsh Khan, 232.
Khudawand Khan; see Sifr Agha.
Khurfakam, 119.
Kilwa, 4, 104, 105.
Kishm, 201, 202.
Kistna river, 10.
Knights made at Tor, 273.
Kosseir, 54, 272.
Koulam, n.
Kulbarga, 9.
Kunji Ali, 252.
Kunji Sufi, 289.
Kurukhshetra, 36.
Kuti Ali, 196.
Laccadives, The, 288.
Lacerda, Manuel de, 139, 155.
Laksamana, The, 326.
Land journeys, 53—57.
Langar Khan, 247.
Laval, Pyrard de, 27.
Leal, Value of, 68.
Lemos, Duarte de, 123, 132, 133, 137.
Lew Chew Islands, The, 141, 339.
Lima, Jeronymo de, 139.
Lima, Joao de, 139, 204.
Lima, D. Roderigo de, 54, 190, 211.
Linschoten, 46.
Lisboa, Antonio de, 54.
Lisbon, 18, 56, 167, 197, 201, 254, 290.
Lopes, Andre, 293.
Lopes, Artur, 335.
Lopes, Thome, 90.
Lopez, Fernao, 151.
Luis, D., Infante, 299, 300.
M
Macedo, Antonio de, 229, 230, 231.
Macedo, Henrique de, 211.
Macedo, Manuel de. Deputed by
King of Portugal to bring back
Sharfu-d-din, 222;challengesRumi
Khan, 236, sent to defend Broach,
243-
Machado, Joao, 59; his history, 75;
deserts to Portuguese, 147; tha-
nadar of Goa, 187 ; leads raid, ibid.;
death of, 188.
Madagascar, 84, 113, 137, 222.,
Madras, 203, 282.
Magalhaens, Fernao de, 2, 45, 88,
132, 241, 331, 332.
Mahabharat, The, 36.
352
INDEX
Mahmud, Sultan of Bengal, 234.
Mahmud Bigarha, Sultan of Guzerat,
9, 224, 239.
Mahmud III, Sultan of Guzerat, 304,
3i5.
Malabar, 1, 7, 10—12, 25, 37, 108,
109, 196,208,212,221,251,252,323.
Malabar chiefs, Southern, 10, 252,
322, 323-
Malabar, Civilization of, 25.
Malacca, 4, 5, 19, 37, 59, 123, 132,
i37, i3 8 > Ho, 142, 144, i45> 173,
190, 191, 193, 208, 268, 286, 291,
292, 294, 296, 303, 314, 319, 321,
326—333, 338, 34o.
Malays, 4, 132, i43> 3 2 7-
Maldives, The, 108, 186, 187, 190.
Malhar Rao, 140.
Malindi, 54, 113, 222.
Mamale, in, 288.
Manaar, Gulf of, 252.
Mancias, 277.
Mandeshwar, 238, 239.
Mangalor (near Diu), 250.
Mantimento, 72.
Manu, 36.
Marcillo, Francisco, 56.
Maria, Joao, 37, 109.
Marquez, Lourenco, 303.
Marriages, Mixed, 17, 25, 58, 147, 176.
Martinho, D., 262.
Mascarenhas, D. Joao, 305, 306, 308,
3°9, 3i°» 312, 314-
Mascarenhas, Joao, ship's captain,
337-
Mascarenhas, D. Pedro, 71, 294.
Mascarenhas, Pero, 150, 206, 208—
211, 329.
Massowah, 9, 153, 185, 190, 191, 271,
272, 274, 309.
Matatana river, 113.
Matchlocks, 37—39.
Matheus the Abyssinian, 152 153,
181, 185, 190.
Mathura, 283.
Mayimama Marakkar, 93.
Mecca, 9, 54, 156, 157.
Mello, Goncalo Vaz de, 233.
Men, Dearth of, in Portugal, 24, 261.
Mendes, Diogo, 137, 138, 140, 146.
Mendez, Henrique, 330, 331.
Mendoca, Manuel de, 261.
Menezes, D. Aleixo de, 182, 328.
Menezes, D. Duarte de, 48, 55 ; term
as governor 199—204, 205.
Menezes, D. Francisco de, 310.
Menezes, D. Henrique de, Term
as governor, 205— 208, 209,213, 221.
Menezes, D. Jorge de, 333~ 335-
Menezes, Donna Lianor de, 167.
Menezes, D. Luiz de, 199, 202.
Menezes, Simao de, 210.
Mergulhao, Diogo, 155.
Mesquita, Diogo de. Captured by
Guzeratis, 212; sent to Nuno da
Cunha, 238 and 239; accompanies
Manuel de Sousa, 248; wounds
Bahadar, 249.
Mesquita, Lopo de, 212.
Mete, 51.
Methods of warfare, ^.
Mexia, Afonso, 13, 69; his character
as an official, 206 and 207 ; opens
new successions, 209; keeps
Mascarenhas out of Cochin, 210;
his punishment, 211, 230, 290.
Mindanao, 337.
Mines at Diu, 308, 309.
Mir Ali, 231, 232, 285, 286, 303, 304,
3H, 320.
Miranda, Antonio de, 210.
Mission, Portuguese, to Persia, 162.
Mocquet, Jean, 46.
Moghals, 238, 239, 242, 243, 250.
Moluccas, The, 62, 74, 144, t6cj, igo,
iQ3> 329. 33I-338-
Mombassa, 222.
Moncaide, 81.
Monroy, D. Fernando de, 187.
Monrov, 1 >. Goterre de, 186—188.
INDEX
353
Moors, 3, 4, 14, 21, 22.
Mozambique,46, 76, 113, 190,277,302.
Muar river, 5, 328, 329.
Muatabar Khan, 320.
Muhamad Shah, Farruki, 251.
Muhamad Shah of Ormuz, 202.
Muhamad, Sultan of Malacca, 141.
Muhamedans in Goa. Worship pro-
hibited, 65; disabilities of, 67.
Mukarram, 193.
Muscat, 51, 119.
Mustafa, see Rumi Khan.
Muzafarabad, 194.
Muzafarshahi, Value of, 69.
N
Nair, 7, n, 12 22, 30, 100, 130, 159;
devote themselves to death, 95, 323.
Naiteas, 106.
Nambutri Brahmin, 4.
Nara Sinha Rao, Raja of Vijayan-
agar, 105.
Nasrat, Sultan of Bengal, 233.
Navigation, Early, 45.
Negapatam, 53, 252, 269.
New Guinea, ^^.
Nicobars, The, 45, 52.
Nile, The, 6, 8, 116, 156, 273, 300.
Ninachetty, 144, 327.
Nizam Shah, Burhan, 195.
Nizam Shahi, 9.
Noronha, D. Afonso de, 115, 131, 225.
Noronha, D. Afonso de, Viceroy,
7h 324-
Noronha, D. Alvaro de, 296.
Noronha, D. Antao de, 71.
Noronha, D. Antonio de, 134, 136.
Noronha, Bastiao de, 202, 203.
Noronha, D. Garcia de, 69; leaves
Albuquerque at Ormuz, 165;
leaves Cochin, 181 ; reaches India
as Viceroy, 258; quarrels with
Nuno da Cunha, 259; his term as
Viceroy, 261—268; his fleet ill-
manned, 261; leaves for Diu, 266;
his avarice and cruelty, 267; his
death, 268, 269, 296, 299, 317.
Noronha, Luiz de, 202.
Noronha, D. Payo de, 317.
Nova, Joao da, 44, 89, 120, 122,
126, 145.
Nunes, Duarte, 262.
Nunez, Dr. Pero, 206, 299.
Nur Muhamad Khalil, 245, 246.
Nuru-d-din, Rais, of Ormuz, 118,
151, 161, 162.
Offices, Sale of all, ordered, 74.
Officials, Payment of, 72—75 ; class
of, sent out, 174.
Orange, Introduction of, 299.
Ordenado, 72.
Ormuz, 5, 6, 41, 43, 49, 54, 55, 105,
112, 113, 117— 119, 122, 133, 137,
145, 151, 152, 160—162, 167, 172-
174, 181, 182, 186, 190—195, 200—
203, 209, 213, 222—224, 235, 236,
253> 254, 262, 280—282, 293, 296,
299> 3H, 3i 6 ; km g of » II8 . l6 5>
281, 282.
Ovington, 48.
Ozi, 113.
Pacheco, Duarte, 2, 3, 20, 30, 37, | Padua shoals, 45.
96; his defence of Cochin, 97— Pahang, 330.
101, 102, 128, 179. Panane, 252.
23
354
INDEX
Pandarani Kollam, 35, 79, 102, 179.
Panjim, 278.
Papal bull of partition, 21—24.
Pardao, Value of, 69.
Pasai, 141, 329.
Patecoons, 71.
Patequatir, 144, 326.
Paul III, Pope, makes Goa an
archbishopric, 262.
Paul, Father, of Camerino, 277.
Payva, Afonso de, 54.
Pedir, 141, 142, 329.
Pedreannes, 151.
Pegu, 74, 151, 169, 232, 328.
Pekin, 339, 340.
Penteado, 264.
Pepper king ; see Bardela, Arel of.
Pepper, Regulations as to, 171, 172.
Percalcos, 72.
Perculim, Coge, 225, 245, 246.
Pereira, Antonio de Saa, 294.
Pereira, Diogo, 229.
Pereira, Gaspar, 123, 125, 160.
Pereira, Goncalo, 335.
Pereira, Ruy Vaz, 291, 292.
Pereira, Yria, 240.
Perim, 155, 157.
Persia, 2, 6, 9, 49, 56, 169.
Persian Gulf, 1, 2, 6, 9, 48, 112, 152,
161, 173.
Perumal, 10, 251.
Pestana, Francisco Pereira, 48.
Philip II, 42, 53.
Pilots hanged by Albuquerque, 140.
Piracy, 47~53-
Pires, Gaspar, 281.
Pires, Thome, 339, 340.
Poisoning of Miguel Vaz, 62, 63.
Poler, 4, 101.
Political geography at beginning of
16th century, 8— n.
Ponda, 187.
Portugal. Early history, 14—18;
king of. assumes fresh titles, 90.
Portuguese. Causes of fall of power,
24, 25 ; historians compared with
Indian, 237; ignorance of native
customs, 30 5 moral characteristics,
19—21; treatment of prisoners of
war, 28.
Powder pots, 41.
Prester John, 16, 54, 154, 156.
Property, Law of, 279.
Quilon, 11, 107, 172, 252, 2J
Quiver, Significance of, 249.
R
Rabello, Roderigo, 146.
Rachol, 232.
Raichor, 138.
Ranai river, 258.
Ranir, 202, 243.
Rasul Khan, 138, 146—148, 150, 151.
Real, Value of, 68.
Real, Antonio, 145, 146, 158, 240.
Red Sea, i, 2, 7, 54—56, 108, 112—
114, 116, 123, 133, 153— 156, 158,
159, 161, 169, 173, 176, 180, 182,
185, 190—192, 196, 204, 211, 212,
225, 236, 254, 255, 268, 269, 271,
272, 275, 276, 288, 289, 291, 322, 336.
Religion, 58-67; cost of establish-
ments, 65 ; persecution, 61 ; revi-
val, 60.
Rent-free grants, 60, 61.
Repelim, 99.
Revenue rules for Goa villages
215—220.
Rewadanda, see Chaul.
INDEX
355
Reynol, 73; starving condition of
320.
Reynoso, Diogo de, 277, 309.
Rhinosceros, 151.
Rhodes, 54, 208.
Rodrigues, Francisco, 305.
Rodriguez, Jeronimo, 296.
Rodriguez, Jo&o, 246.
Rules for fighting, Brahminical, 36.
Rumes, Villa dos; see Gogala.
Rumi Khan, Mustafa, 227, 228, 238,
247.
Rumi Khan, son of Sifr Agha, 247,
307, 3i3-
Sa, Garcia de, 70, 242, 262, 263,
293; his term as governor, 318—
321, 3 2 4-
Sabaio, 133.
Sacred Stone of Cochin, 10, 95, 251,
252.
Safdr Khan, 256.
Saifu-d-din of Ormuz, 118, 161.
Sailors, Payment of, 44.
St. Catherine, Monastery of, 116, 273.
St. Helena, Island of, 89, 151.
St. Luiz, Francisco de, 62.
St. Thomas, 28, 74, 203, 283.
Saldanha, Antonio, 96.
Salsette, 67, 231, 232, 286, 314,320.
Sampayo, LopoVaz de, 208 ; his term
as governor, 209—213, 223, 224.
Samuri, The, 3, 7, 10, 11, 26, 27,
30-32, 35, 37, 47, 79—85, 88, 92,
95—100, 102, 108, in, 115, 128,
129, 131, 153, 158, 175, 179, 204,
207, 208, 221, 228, 229, 251, 267,
288, 291, 320—323.
San Thome", Value of, 69.
Sanaa, The Imam of, 156.
Sangameshwar, 47, 177, 286.
Santiago, Joao de, 235, 247, 248, 249.
Say, Edward, 48.
Sea travelling, Conditions of, 44.
Seamanship, Portuguese, 42, 43.
Sepulveda, Alonso Henriques de,
^ 292, 293.
Sepulveda, Manuel de Sousa, 292,
3i9, 324-
Sequiera, Diogo Lopes de. Made
governor east of Cape Comorin,
123; his conduct at Cochin, 126;
his disaster at Malacca, 132, 137;
Albuquerque procures release of
his men, 142, 171; his term as go-
vernor, 189—198; starts for Red
Sea, 190; baffled at Diu, 191 — 194;
difficulties at Chaul, 194 and 195;
his character, 196; his conduct
as an official, 196—198, 199, 200,
201, 319, 338.
Serrao, Francisco, 132, 331, 332.
Shadvvan, 273.
Shahdbu-d-din, 202.
Shahabu-d-din, Khwaja, 52, 233.
Shahr, 254, 255, 317.
Shakr Ulla, Khwaja, 233.
Shamsher, Rais, 202, 203.
Shamsu-d-din, Khwaja, 285 — 289,
295, 303-
Sharif Barakat, 9.
Sharfu-d-din of Ormuz, 201—203,
222, 223, 302.
Shastri river, 286.
Sher Shah, 234.
Ships, Improvements in, carried out
by Vasco da Gama, 43.
Siam, 4, 144, 151, 169, 338, 340.
Sid Ali 192.
Sieges. Cananor, in, 112; Goa,
146—148; Calicut, 207 and 208;
Diu, 1st siege, 255- 258, 262—265;
2nd siege, 305—311.
Sifra Agha, 56; his origin, 183;
accompanies Mustafa to Diu, 227,
356
INDEX
244; accompanies Bahadar, 247
and 248; wounded, 249; his gal-
lantry, 250; leaves Diu, 255;
returns with army to besiege it,
256, 258; prepares to besiege Diu
a second time, 305; besieges it,
306; his death, 307, 315.
Silva, Antonio da, 265.
Silva, Francisco da, 323.
Silva, Gaspar da, 182.
Silva, Pero da, 195.
Silveira, Antonio da, 250, 266.
Silveira, Diogo, 230.
Silveira, Hector da, 210, 227.
Silver coinage, History of, 71.
Singapur, 5.
Sirgueiro, Joao, 50, 51.
Soares, Lopo, 39, 43; commands
fleet of, 1504, 101; his gallantry,
102; his term as governor, 179—
189; reverses Albuquerque's
policy, 180; refuses offer of Aden,
182; baffled at Jedda, 184; dis-
asters in Red Sea, 185; returns to
Goa, 186; thwarts Alcacova, 188;
builds fort in Ceylon and leaves
India, 189, 190, 191, 227, 328.
Socotra, 112— 114, 118, 122, 154, 176,
182, 221, 225.
Sodre, Bras, 94, 95.
Sodre, Vincent, 90, 93—96, 116.
Sofala, 54, 73.
Soldado pratico, 297.
Soldo, 72, 73.
Soure, Afonso de, 49, 50.
Sousa, Christovao de, 38, 194, 210.
Sousa, Faria y, 318.
Sousa, Jeronimo de, 186.
Sousa, Joao Rodriguez de, 292.
Sousa, Manuel de, 242, 244, 247 —
249.
Sousa, Martim Afonso de. Tampers
with coinage, 70, 76, 176, 239;
begins Diu fort, 240; fails to help
Bahadar, 243. 250; his victory
at Vedalai, 252 and 253; leaves
Portugal, 277 ; his strange conduct
to his predecessor, 278; his term as
governor, 279—290; raids town
of an ally, 280; treatment of
Ormuz, 281; robs temples in
Southern India, 282—285 1 exploits
Shamsu-d-din, 285—289, 291, 292,
299, 3°3, 304, 323-
Spain, 13, 14, 18, 24, 53, 332—338.
Spice Islands; see Moluccas, The.
Suakin, 9, 54, 270 — 272.
Successions, The, 214.
Sudras. n.
Suez, 6, 8, 35, 116, 183, 184, 254—
256, 268, 270—275, 300; gulf of, 54.
Sulaiman. Appointed to the com-
mand of the Egyptian fleet, 183
and 184; murdered, 227.
Sulaiman Pasha, Kunuch. Ap-
pointed to the command of the
Turkish fleet, 256; hangs the
Shaikh of Aden and reaches Diu,
257; begins siege of Diu, 258;
breaks capitulations, 263; aban-
dons siege, 265, 285, 316.
Sultani, Value of, 69.
Sumatra, 11, 45, 132, 190, 329.
Sunda, 74.
Surat, 42, 43, 202, 243, 305.
Sylvester the Corsican, 161.
Tactics, Malabar, 34.
Talikot, 12.
Tanga, Value of, 69.
Tanur, 196, 229, 320.
Tatar Khan Lodi, 238.
Tavora, Lourenqo Pires de, 47
Tebelicare temple, 284.
Telles, Fernao, 71.
INDEX
357
Telles, Manuel, 103.
Tenreiro, Antonio, 53, 55.
Ternate, 331-338.
Tidor, 331, 332, 334.
Timbuctoo, 17.
Timoja, 105, 106, 133, 134, 138, 140.
Todar Mai, 207.
Toghan, Malik, 224, 225, 227, 234,
236.
Tor, 54, 273.
Toran, Shah of Ormuz, 201, 202.
Ujain, 283.
Ujantana, Raja of, 330.
Toranbagh, 121.
Trade routes and centres, 4—7.
Travancore, 11.
Trimumpara, Raja of Cochin, 107.,
108.
Trinidade, Fr. Adeodato da, 302.
Tungabudra river, 10.
Turks, 39, 53, 55, 184, 227, 228, 256—
258, 262, 263, 265, 266, 267, 279,
316, 317.
Tuticorin, 252.
U
Utimute Raja, 142, 144, 326.
Vaipeen Island, 11, 95, 98.
Vallanjaka ford, 100.
Vaqueiro, D. Fernando, 262.
Varthema, 26, 108, 109.
Vasconcellos, D. Luiz Fernandes
de, 45-
Vaz, Goncalo, no, in.
Vaz, Miguel, 60—63.
Vedalai, 252.
Veiga, Afonso de, 50, 51.
Veiga, Francisco, 268.
Veiga, Donna Isabel de, 264.
Venezeano, Value of, 69.
Vijayanagara, 9, 10, 12, 28, 53, 105,
106, 138, 152, 159, 280, 282, 283.
Vidigueira, 273, 278.
Villa Lobos, Ruy Lopes de, 338.
Vinaigre, Fernao, 337.
Vintem, Value of, 69.
Voyages, 42 — 47, licences to make,
74-
W
Wali Hussain, 204.
War, Form of declaring, 249.
Waradhula, 323, 324.
X
Xavier, St. Francis, 22, 62, 63, 65, 76, 204, 277.
Y
Yemen, 9.
Yule, Sir H., quoted, 68, 70, 71.
Yusaf of Lar; see Assad Khan.
Yusaf Ahmad, 262.
Zaman, Mirza, 237, 250, 251.
I Zeila, 39, 152, 186, 269, 275.
THE RISE OF PORTUGUESE POWER IN INDIA.
Coasts freqtie
Trade Routes by Sea shown thus -
Trade Routes by Land shown thus-
i. i. \1
•?
W5
DS Whiteway, Richard Stephen
4-98 The rise of Portuguese power
[
., '—■■■' ' - ■ ■ '■■:* M l l i mn i lMII M Hi lMW II I illHUl i - .
