Page 29 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

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1 INTRODUCTION.
been nominated to the captaincy of Ormuz,1 the storehouses of
provisions, with orders to all the customs officers to obey him as
they would himself personally, and on his simple written demands
to supply all that was needful for that fleet.
He then proceeded to the election of the captain-major thereof,
who was Loureugo de Brito, he being an old fidalgo, of great
experience,3 and one who had served many years in India as
captain and captain-major of fleets, and had formerly been captain
of Qofala (and on account of his having been removed before the
expiry of his term of office, the King had appointed him to it for
another three years),1 and a man whom many considered on his
merits to be in the first succession for the government of India.4
This fidalgo began to proceed with the getting ready of his fleet ;
and the Count Viceroy did not rest until he had got it at the bar,
and paid the soldiers three-fourths of their pay, and supplied
sailors for all the vessels at increased wages ; and such haste was
made with everything that soon he had the whole fleet at the bar,
which consisted of the two galleons of which we have spoken, in
one of which went the captain-major, and in the other Antonio
Pereira Coutinho, formerly captain of Chaul. The galleys were
two, in which went as captain of the one D. Luiz de Noronha, son
of the Conde de Linhares, the late vedor da fazenda, who had come
from the Kingdom in the year 1595, and who carried a provisional
appointment as admiral5 of the fleet; and of the other, D.
Jeronymo de Noronha, son of D. Antonio de Menezes. The
other galley, to complete the number of three, was to be taken on
at Malaca, whither had gone as captain during the past year Ruy
Dias de Aguiar Coutinho. The foists were nine, as captains of
which went D. Francisco Henriques, who is at present6 serving as
captain of Malaca;7 Estev^o Teixeira de Macedo, who is at
1 He left Goa at the end of 1597, to take up this appointment, left
vacant by the death of Antonio de Azevedo (see supra, p. xvi, «.).
2 See supra, p. xlvi.
1 Couto, in enumerating various fidalgos that accompanied the
Count Viceroy to India in 1596, mentions “ Lourengo de Brito, who
went nominated for the captaincy of Sofala and Mogambique, which
he had already held for some time, and had been deposed, and sent
to the Kingdom for certain faults, where he cleared himself, and the
King nominated him for three years complete to the same fortress”
(Dec. XII, Liv. 1, cap. i).
4 Any likelihood of his succeeding to the government of India
must, one would think, have disappeared after his mismanagement of
this expedition.
6 See infra, p. 9, n.
c That is, in 1611, when Couto wrote this unfinished Decade.
7 In 1613 he was removed from the post for suspected peculation,
and brought an action claiming certain rights connected with goods
shipped from the Archipelago to India, but lost it (Bocarro, Dec. XIII,
cap. xlvi; Documentos Remettidos, tom. i, pp. 125-6, 417, 458).
•i
INTRODUCTION. li
present captain of the fortress of Mogambique; AfTonso Telles
de Menezes, son of Francisco da Silva de Menezes; Nicoldo
Pereira de Miranda, son of Henrique Henriques de Miranda, late
grand chamberlain of the Cardinal D. Henrique whilst cardinal,
and after he became King was his master of the horse; Luiz
Lopes de Sousa; Jeronymo Botelho, having the reversion of the
captaincy of Malaca, who died in company with the Viceroy D.
Martini Affonso de Castro;1 Jorge de Lima Barreto, D. Diogo
Lobo, son of D. Rodrigo Lobo, and Jofio de Seixas.
This fleet left the bar of Goa for Sunda on the 24th of
September............
The Dutch [English] ships, of which Nuno da Cunha advised
the Count, as soon as they had finished watering at Titangone,
set sail, and came in sight of the coast of India below Goa,2 and
then ran down the Malavar coast as far as Cape Comorim,
where they fell in with some merchant ships that had left Goa for
Bengala to load rice, which they captured and plundered,
carrying off from them a large sum of money that was going in
them for the cargo ;3 one of them, I remember, belonged to
Diogo Catella, a casado4 of Goa, whom they afterwards released
with the rest of the Portuguese, and even provided them with
some things; and thence they set their course for Malaca,5 at
which coast they arrived, as we shall see further on.
1 Meaning, probably, in the disastrous defeat of the Portuguese
fleet off Malacca by Cornells Matelief in 1606 (see Pyrard, vol. ii,
pp. xvi, 154).
1 This could not have been earlier than some time in October, so
that more than two months must have been occupied in crossing the
Indian Ocean.
3 Gyles van Harwick (i.e., Wm. Resould), writing from Lisbon on
September 30th, 1598, to Peter Artson, merchant (i.e., Sir Robt.
Cecil), reports that “ on 1st August three carracks arrived from India,
and one was burnt there full laden. They bring news that two
English ships in India have taken two Portugal ships, rich with
treasure, that were on their voyage from Goa to China” [j/V] ; and the
writer “supposes it is Capt. Wood in Mr. [jzV] Dudley’s shipping.”
He also mentions a “report of great preparations made in India by
the Portugal to prevent the Flemings trading at Sunda. Takes it to
be a Portugal brag” {Calendar of Slate Papers, Domestic Scries, 159S-
1601, p. 97 ; Calendar of Stale Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies,
1513-1616, p. 99).
4 Literally “ married man,” but used with a special meaning. The
casados enjoyed certain privileges (see Whiteway’s Rise of Portuguese
Power in India, p. 72 ; Linschoten, vol. i, pp. 188, 199, and note ;
Pyrard, vol. ii, p. 125).
6 From the next extract from Couto it will be seen that Wood’s
ships waited about off Cape Comorin, probably in the hope of further
prizes. They cannot have stayed there very long, and probably made
a short cruise in the Bay of Bengal before setting their course for the
Malacca Straits, where they arrived early in January, 1598.
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