Page 25 - Anglo Portuguese Rivalry in The Gulf_Neat

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fighting had been very few, but it was with crews
greatly decimated by sickness that Weddell and Blyth
returned to Swally in September.1 Left to themselves,
the Persians did indeed make an effort to carry the war
!
into the enemy’s country, and opened their campaign
;; by occupying the fortress of Sohar and other strong­
ii
holds on the Arabian coast, which had been previously
i evacuated by the Portuguese. Their further progress
i was checked first of all by Captain Gon^alo de Siqueira

i de Sousa, who, with a small flotilla of seven fustas,
temporarily recaptured Sohar and drove them back
to Ormuz; and, when they returned to the charge,
by Dom Gongalo da Silveira, who, with a vastly
inferior force, routed their flotilla off Sohar, thus
preventing them from advancing on Muscat.1 In
May, 1623, Ruy Freyre returned to the scene of action,
with some reinforcements he had received from the .
1
1 new Viceroy who had dissuaded him from his intention
! of becoming an Augustinian monk, and persuaded him
I to carry on the war against the Persians as “ Captain-
• f General of the straits of Ormuz and the Red Sea.”
Determined to retrieve his reputation, Ruy Freyre
1 wasted no time in getting to work, and speedily
organised an expedition to recover the lost strongholds,
! commencing with Sohar, which was taken by storm
after an obstinate resistance by the Persians.3 The
news of Ruy Freyre’s return cowed the Arabs and
Persians, as much as it heartened his own men, and it
if
was not long before he felt ready to undertake the
!
a 'Compare Foster’s English Factories, x622-1623, pp. xii and xyiii, and
documents there cited.
*Cf. the documents printed in Dois Capitaes da India, (Lisboa, 1898),
pp. 53 flg., and Queiror, Vida do Irma6 Pedro de Basto (Lisboa, 1689) Livro
4i
III, Cap V, p. 277.
*Commentarios} Chapters 43 and 44. Dois Capitaes da India, pp. 60-70.
Della Valle, Travels (1665 edition), p. 92.
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