Page 9 - Anglo Portuguese Rivalry in The Gulf_Neat

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sketch of the principal jidalgos who crossed swords with
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it King James’ men in the Persian Gulf three hundred
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years ago.
First and foremost amongst these, was the man
s selected to command the expedition fitted out at
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» Lisbon in the spring of 1619—Ruy Freyre a’Andrade.
$ Researches by the late Mr. W. Irvine, and by my
friend Snr. Frazao de Vasconcellos, have shown that
Ruy Freyre was born in the town of Beja in Alentejo.
. He was the son of Joao Freyre d’Andrade, who was
i Chancellor of India during the first decade of the
seventeenth century, and thus the holder of the
highest law office of the Crown. This Joao Freyre
t ■ j was an intimate friend of the chronicler Diogo do
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5 Couto, as may be seen from the correspondence
I between them, printed on pp. 78-81 of Caminha ’s
l i, Obras ineditas de Diogo do Couto, Lisboa, 1808. In
the Torre de Tombo there is a reference to the
grant of the captaincy of Damao to Ruy Freyre
!
! d’Andrade as the eldest son of Joao Freyre. Ruy
Freyre first went out to India in 1607, in the fleet of
Dom Jeronimo Coutinho, as an ordinary jidalgo, or
I • private gentleman, with an allowance of 2,000 reis a
month. No portrait of him has survived, but he
I stands clearly before us in the pages of Purchas, where
1 a servant of John Company, who knew him well,
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describes him as being “ a proper tall Gentleman,
swarthie of colour, Sterne of Countenance, few of words
j and of an excellent spirit; he had lived here in India
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many years.” From 1609 onwards he spent every year
of his life on active service ; for the first eight or nine
years as Captain-Major of various Portuguese forces on
1 'Bocarro, Decada 13 (Lisbon. 1876), pp. 71-73, 218-220 and 266-267.
the North-west coast of India, defending the cities of
i Chaul, Bassein and Damao against the assaults of
neighbouring princes; and from 1619, until his death
thirteen years later, fighting the English and Persians
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in the Gulf. The scholarly Della Valle, who came
from Persia to India in one of the ships which had
participated in the taking of Ormuz, testifies to the
! admiration in which he was held by his opponents,
1 which not even his ruthless execution of the hapless
survivors of the Lion, burnt by him off Gombrun in
1625, could altogether forfeit. The streak of cruelty
in his character is also clearly brought out by the
pitiless way with which he destroyed every living thing, ■
regardless of age or sex, which fell into his hands
during his campaigns in the Gulf. Of his headlong
t courage, open-handed generosity and somewhat
capricious pride, several stories are told by Antonio
Bocarro and other contemporary writers, from which
we select the following.
During a sortie from Damao in 1613, Ruy Freyre
slew a Pathan in single combat, cutting him clean in
i half at the waist with a single sweep of his sword.
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Whilst serving as Captain of Chaul in the following
! year, he was severely wounded by a musket shot in the
stomach, during an attack upon a superior force of the
enemy; his troops on seeing this, fell into confusion,
but Ruy Freyre, despite the gravity of his wound,
■ I rallied them by his voice and example, until a retire­
f ment was effected in good order. During these
campaigns he kept open house for scores of the poorer
soldiers, and raised and equipped a force of native
auxiliaries at his own expense.1 In November, 1615,
he was appointed Captain-Major of the Bombay
flotilla, which visited Surat on its voyage to Diu, in
order to confirm the peace recently agreed upon with
Faria y Sousa also reproduces these stories with less exactitude and detail
5 in Vol. Ill of his Asia Portuguese, (Lisboa, 1675). It is worth noting that
at the time of his appointment to the command of the Persian Gulf squadron
in 1619, Ruy Freyre was only 28 or 29 years old. His orders for the
expedition are printed on pp. 211-218 of the Commentaries, (English edition).
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