Page 3 - Anglo Portuguese Rivalry in The Gulf_Neat

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government at Goa during the period in question, but
has very few letters sent by the Portuguese officials in
Asia to their superiors in Europe, which would be of
far greater value and interest to us. More enlightening,
as also more entertaining, are the piquant memoirs of
a Spanish hidalgo, Don Garcia de Silva y Figueroa, who
was Ambassador from the King of Spain to Shah Abbas
the Great, in the eventful years preceding the siege and
capture of Ormuz. Don Garcia had a pen dipped in
vinegar and no great love for his Portuguese fellow-
subjects,1 so it is not surprising that there is no
Portuguese edition of his diary. The original manu­
script was first published in full under the title of
Commentarios} in two volumes, printed at Madrid in
1903, but as early as 1667, a French translation had
been made by Abraham de Wicquefort and published
at Paris.
Naturally enough, the siege of Ormuz in 1622 bulks
largely in contemporary literature, forming as it does
the turning-point in the struggle for power between
English and Portuguese in the Gulf. The military and
naval operations before, during and immediately after
the siege, are fully dealt with in the Commentarios do
grande Capitdo Ruy Freyre de Andrade, originally
printed at Lisbon in 1647, and of which an annotated
English translation was published at London in 1929.
This work, although based upon contemporary papers
and despatches, is not as reliable as it should have been,
owing to the arbitrary way in which the original
editor-publisher,Louren^o Craesbeeck,used his material.
Still, the more important errors and omissions can be
readily detected by comparison with the contemporary
English accounts, as reproduced by Purchas and Foster.
A further check upon the Commentarios is afforded by a
xIt will be remembered that from 1580-1640, Spain and Portugal formed a
dual monarchy under a jingle King.
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little work edited at Lisbon in 1641 by Luiz Marinho
1
de Azevedo and entitled Apologeticos Discursos em I
defensa dafama e boa memoria de Ferndo de Albuquerque,
Governador que foi da India, contra 0 que dyelle escreveu
D. Gonsalo de Cespedesy na Chronica d’El Rei D. Filippe
IV de Castella. As its title implies, this little book ,!
was published to vindicate the conduct of Fernao de -I
Albuquerque, who was Governor of India from
1619-1622, and who did not always see eye to eye with i
Ruy Freyre, although he loyally supported him during
his campaigns against the Persians and English in the
Gulf. Although not so detailed as the Commentarios, 51
• it is often more reliable, and has never yet been used *! !
by any modern writer on the subject. Upon the 1647
edition of the Commentarios, Snr. Luciano Cordeiro,
the indefatigable secretary of the Lisbon Geographical ■! I
Society, based his Como se perdeu Ormuz (Lisboa,
1896). Although the learned author treated Louren90
Craesbeeck’s compilation with greater respect than it
deserves, he atoned for his uncritical acceptation of i
the former’s patriotic embellishments, by printing as •s
an appendix to his own work, a large number of ••
contemporary documents on the siege of Ormuz which
are of the greatest value and interest. Snr. Cordeiro
I
followed up his first book with a small publication
entitled Dois Capitdes da India (Lisboa, 1898) which
contains several documents narrating in detail the <!
progress of Portuguese arms in the Persian Gulf during
the years 1623-1629, thus forming a continuation of the
Ormuz operations. Another valuable mine of in­ Si
formation for this period is the Travels of that
“ cultured Roman,” Pietro della Valle. This learned
voyager travelled up the Gulf in 1625, and the narrative
of his voyage throws numerous sidelights on the chief
personages and events concerned. An English edition
of his Travels was printed at London in 1665, and
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