Page 51 - INDIANNAVYV1

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. 19
of two different orders. The fighting men were rated as
genuine Portuguese, who, proud of this pre-eminence, refused,
unless in cases of extremity, to take part in the services
necessary to navigate the vessel, but reserved to themselves
the management of the guns and small-arms. The mariners
were either slaves or Hindoos of the meaner castes, or Christians
born in the country, and considered unworthy of military ser-
vice. The armament, which now appeared at the bar of Surar,
was commanded by the Viceroy of Goa, Don Jeronimo de
Azevedo, who hoisted his flag as Admiral, in the ' Todos
Santos,' of 800 tons, having on board two hundred and sixty
fighting men, of whom thirty were of family and distinction
;
and twenty-eight pieces of ordnance, which, probably, were of
large calibre, for two are expressly said to be 42-pounders.
Five others of the ships were from 700 to 400 tons, with from
one hundred and eighty to one hundred and forty men, and
carrying from twenty to fourteen guns. These six were rated
as galleons. The two next in force were each of 200 tons, fifty
men, and eight guns; and there was also a pinnace of four
guns and eighty fighting men, and two galleys, each having
fifty men. The "frigates" had eighteen oars on a side, and
were manned with thirty fighting men, besides the rowers, who
were probably two to an oar. The numerical strength of the
crews of this armament, accordingly, amounted to four thousand
three hundred and twenty, and, with the mariners in the larger
vessels, made a total of six thousand natives serving with the
fleet. The number of Portuguese, or Europeans, was two
thousand six hundred, whose duty it was to work* one hundred
and thirty-four pieces of cannon, against eighty of much inferior
calibre in the English ships and iSurat galiyats.
Captain Downton considered the success of this armament as
involving the certain destruction of English commerce in the
Mogul's dominions, reasoning that, if his own ships should be
driven from their station in the roads of Surat and Swally, the
Portuguese Viceroy, by ravaging the city itself, would compel
the Nabob to refuse the English all future resort and intercourse
;
Captain Downton, therefore, regarding the loss of his ships as
of much inferior moment to such a result, deliberately resolved
sisted of two quarto pages. Exclusive of the logs of the Company's ships visiting
the Red Sea, our own earliest work was published in 1750, and called " Naviga-
tion and Voyages to the Red Sea." Tlie next embraced a series of " Instructions
for Sailing from Cape Gruardafui to Babelmandeb, and through the Straits," by
Captain Norton Hutchinson, of tlie ' Doddington,' 1753 ; and, five years latei-,
appeared a " Journal of the ' Latham ' to Jeddab." Before the expedition of
Sir Home Popham, and the surveys of Captam Court, a few years later, the Red
Sea was a mare incognita.
* Onne, from whom the above calculation is derived, says, " We have endea-
voured to compute the force of the Armada from tlie depositions in Purchas, of a
Portuguese who served in one of the galleons. Faria de Souza relates this cam-
paign ; and although ditlering in some particulars from the English account*,
without partiality to the Portuguese."
c 2