Page 22 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

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xxxvi INTRODUCTION.
From various letters written to me from that State,1 I learnt
that the ambassadors sent by the Dachem2 to the Viceroy, Mathias
de Albuquerque, regarding terms of peace and other matters,
departed from him ill content, it being only a short time previously
that this king released the Bishop of China, whom he had in his
power, and the rest of the Portuguese who were wrecked in the
ship in which he was going, with great demonstration of desiring
the friendship of that State. But I am not inclined to believe in
this matter except what I shall learn from the letters of Mathias
de Albuquerque and from yours; and therefore I enjoin upon you
to write particularly regarding this.3
I have advised you by land by letters that went by different
ways after the arrival here of the four ships*1 of the past year
1 Estado, i.e.y India ; just as Portugal was referred to by writers
from India as “ that kingdom” (aquclle reino).
2 That is, the king of Achin. (On the form “ Dachem,” see Hobson-
fobsoti, s.v. “Acheen.”),
3 Couto doubtless recorded these events in his lost 0?izena Dccada;
but in the makeshift Decada Undecinia there is no mention of them.
The earliest reference to the subject that I have found is in the
annual letter of the Goa Chamber to the King, written December 19th,
1596 (printed in Archivo Portuguez-Orientaly fasc. i, Pt. 11), in which
they say that their predecessors had informed the King of the matter
in the foregoing year (which appears to be incorrect). In his reply of
February 13th, 1597 (printed in Archivo Portugucz-Oriental, fasc. i,
Pt. 1), the King just mentions the topic, with which he deals more fully
in a letter to the Count Viceroy, dated February 5th, 1597 (printed in
Archivo Porluguez-Orientaly fasc. iii). From these letters it seems
that the captain-major of the wrecked ship was D. Francisco d’Ega,
whose brother, for some unexplained reason, was kept a prisoner by
the king of Achin when he released the other Portuguese. The Goa
- Chamber express their agreeable surprise at the action of the Achinese
chief, after the past experience of the Portuguese with him and his
predecessors, and their regret at the bad treatment of his ambas­
sadors ; and they complain that the Viceroy would accede to neither
of their requests, viz., either to send a present to conciliate the king
of Achin, or to dispatch a fleet to protect Malacca in case he should
attack it in revenge for the insult to his ambassadors. From the
King's letter we gather that Mathias de Albuquerque was averse to
making formal terms of peace with the Achinese, lest they should
come in such numbers to Malacca as to prove a menace to that
place; also, that the treatment of the ambassadors had been better
than reported.
4 The four ships were the Silo Sitnfio, the Silo Francisco, the Sao
Phelippe, and the N. S. de Vcncimcnto, all of which arrived at Lisbon
on August 27th, 1597. None of the letters said by the King to have
been sent overland to India after the arrival of these ships are extant ;
but the Venetian ambassador in Spain wrote from Madrid to the Doge
and Senate on October 20th, 1597 :—“Some days ago an Armenian
was
—despatched from here to Ormuz, vid Venice and Alexandria. He
bore letters to the Viceroy, calling his attention to the progress of
*■>
♦ I:.
f-
INTRODUCTION. xxxvii
regarding various matters of my service, and especially how that
the Hollanders who came from those parts that same year . i?"
encountered at Santa Elena the said ships1 with some pepper and
drugs, which it is understood that they loaded in ports of the i Iff 1
island of Samatra and of Jaoa. And because I now have advice E
:• f
that this year are being got ready many ships of the said
I
Hollanders for the purpose of again making that journey,- as
I have commanded to be written to you more particularly by these < £
V
vias* (and I have also commanded it to be done by land); and it \ ft
*
may happen that this king of Dachem, disgusted at the bad m
i i
English commerce in those parts, ancl charging him to hinder it by all
the means in his power. These orders arc thought to be difficult to
execute : for the English will not readily abandon that trade. Three
of their ships a few months ago made a great profit in spices ; with
the result that in Lisbon the price of drugs has gone down. 1 also
hear that the King- of Denmark and the Free Cities have been invited
to interrupt English and Dutch trade” (Calendar of State Papers, mi
Venice, vol. ix, 1592-1603, pp. 291-292). The Armenian referred to I
above is doubtless the one mentioned by Couto as having been dis­
patched by the captain of Hormuz in 1596 (see note infra, p. xl;. :
1 This was on May 24th-25th, 1597 (sec letter of March 10th, 1598,
infra ; F. van der Does, in De Jongc, op. cif.tvol. ii, pp. 369-371).
In The Description of a Voyage, etc., we read (p. 37) :—“The 24. of l
May in the morning wee discouered a Portingall ship, that stayed for %
vs, and put out a flagge of truce, and because our flagge of truce was
not so readie as theirs, and we hauing the wind of him. therefore he
shot two shootes at vs, and put forth a flagge out of his maine top,
and we shot 5. or 6. times at him, and so held on our course without
speaking to him, hauing a South easte windc, holding our course West ?■
and by South to find the Island of S. Helena, which the Portingall
likewise sought. The 25. of May we discouered the Island of S.
Helena, but we could not see the Portingal ship, still sayling with a r
stifTc Southeast wind, & about euening we were vnder the Island,
which is very high lande, and may be scene at the least J4. or /j.
miles off, and as we sayled about the North point, there lay three other
great Portingal ships, we being not aboue half a mile from them, S
wherevpon we helde in the weather and to seawarde Northeast as
much as we might. The Portingalles perceyuing vs, the Admiral of 1
their fleet shot off a pece to call their men that were on land to come
a bo tele, and then wee saw foure of their shippes together, that were
worth a great summe of money, at the least 300. tunnes of gold, for
they were all laden with spices, precious stones, and other rich wares,
and therefore wee durst not anker vnder the Island, but lay all night
Northeastwarde, staying for our company.” (The next day this ship,
the Hollandia, met her two companions, after a month's separation,
and the three sailed homewards, having plenty of fresh water on
board.)
2 Regarding these ships, see further on.
3 The word via (meaning way, road, route) was used in a special
sense in connection with the royal dispatches to India (see also
supra, p. xi).